


Truth and Consequences

by rahleeyah



Series: Charlie [2]
Category: City Homicide (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 36,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rahleeyah/pseuds/rahleeyah
Summary: Sequel to Second Chances. Nick and Jen are ready to start their lives together, but when the unthinkable happens, they'll both be pushed beyond their limits. Forced to face the consequences of their past, they'll be caught in a race against the clock to save everything they hold dear.





	1. Chapter 1

_Six months later…_

Nick Buchanan had always been an early riser. He had honed the skill as a teenager; he'd grown up in a small house with his mother and three sisters, and he'd quickly discovered the benefits of being the first one up in the mornings. It meant he was first in line for the shower, and so the water was always hot, and he never had to wait while his sisters faffed about with their hair and argued with one another. It also meant that he was often in charge of breakfast, but he'd much rather be showered and dressed and scrambling a pan of eggs than caught up in the girls' early morning dramas. And then he'd left home and joined the police, and used his extra time in the mornings to go for a jog, to keep himself in shape and get his thoughts in order before heading in to work.

Lately, though, he'd discovered a new pleasure in those first quiet moments before dawn, and he indulged himself in it now, leaning forward to let his lips brush against the back of Jen's shoulder. If they woke early enough, if Charlie was sleeping deeply enough, if their mobiles were mercifully silent, he could roll her beneath him and shower her with kisses and start his day with a much more pleasant form of exercise. And even on those mornings when that didn't result in the pair of them naked and tangled up together it was enough to have these few precious minutes to themselves, talking quietly while their hands traveled over one another's skin, delighted and enraptured by one another, joyous in this new life they had found, together.

At the touch of his lips Jen hummed softly and rolled over, draping her leg over his thigh and smiling up at him. She wore a white tank top and a pair of soft black shorts, and when she moved the duvet slid down, revealed the way her shirt had ridden up, the smooth, soft skin of her belly pale and inviting in the early morning light. He loved her always, and she was beautiful always, but there was something about  _this_  Jen, the Jen he saw first thing upon waking, no makeup, hair a mess, soft and wrinkled from sleep, in his arms, beside him,  _with him_ , that he loved best of all.

"Morning," he whispered, bowing his head and kissing her gently.

"Morning," she answered when he pulled back, smiling up at him. Nick was quite certain that smile was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his entire life.

They did not wake together every morning; sometimes they were working different cases, keeping different hours, and they'd go a night or two or six without falling into bed wrapped around one another. Sometimes Nick had to go back to his, had to do his laundry, check his mail, make sure the house hadn't fallen down in his absence. Most nights, though, Nick found his way to Jen's bed, and he loved it. He loved spending time with their son in the evenings, loved teasing Amy gently at the dinner table, loved Jen's hands tender on his skin. He loved the sense of  _home,_ belonging, peace he found in this place, and with each passing day he became more convinced that this was exactly what he wanted for his future. This house, this woman, this life so full of love, was everything he'd ever dreamed of, and he was ready, now, in a way he had never been before, to make it a reality.

And on this particular morning he could not bear to keep such thoughts to himself. Jen was beautiful, so beautiful, and he loved her so much, and the sun was just beginning to rise beyond the curtains, and the whole world seemed to be holding its breath, ripe and lush with potential.

He smiled down at her, ran his hand over her sleep-mussed hair, and she hummed and closed her eyes, pleased at his touch.

"Let's get married," he whispered into the stillness.

Beneath him, around him, Jen sighed, but she did not open her eyes.

"Nick," she said softly, a note of warning to her tone. It was not the first time they'd had this conversation; he knew already the objections she was about to raise, and she knew already the defenses he would use to counter them, but still the dance continued. He had asked, and he intended to keep asking until it stuck.

"I love you," he cut across her protests, leaning forward to let his lips brush against her temple, his arms wrapped around her and holding her close. "And I want us to be together. I want us to wake up like this every day."

She pressed herself a little closer into his embrace, dropping her face so that her nose pressed against his neck, the grip of her thigh against his hip tightening by a fraction.

"We don't have to be married to do that, Nick," she pointed out. It was a half-hearted attempt at best, and Nick intended to seize on it at once. It was not fear of the commitment or disdain for the institution of marriage itself that held her back, he knew; Jen was worried about work, and mistrustful of change. She wanted to have her cake and eat it, too, wanted them to be together at home and on the job. That much Nick could understand, for he wanted the same. Unlike Jen, however, he didn't think marriage would spell the end of Homicide for either of them;  _don't screw the crew_  was an unwritten rule, not an official ordinance, and he rather thought that, given their track record, they could make an argument that an exception ought to be made in their case. This was no casual fling, this relationship they'd cultivated for themselves at home, and they had proven already that they could work together and sleep together without either sphere of their lives suffering for it.

"We could be so much more than we are right now," he pointed out. "We could live together, be together, every day. No more back and forth, no more driving separate cars into work, no more lying to our friends, no more questions." He could not see her face, as she'd pressed herself tightly into the crook of his neck, but he could feel her smile against his skin. "Marry me, Jen," he repeated, but before he could argue his case the bedroom door opened, and he lifted his head to watch with a smile on his face as Charlie came shuffling in.

As ever he'd stripped down to his pants at some point in the night, was dragging his little blue blanket behind him and sucking his thumb as he approached the bed where his parents lay, and he was, for lack of a better word, adorable. His dark hair, his chubby cheeks, his eyes so like his father's;  _Christ,_ but Nick loved that little boy. He often found his way to Jen's room first thing up waking, and after that first disastrous morning Nick and Jen had both taken pains to ensure they were dressed when they fell asleep. Nick was grateful for their efforts now, glad that he was wearing a t-shirt and his trunks, glad that he did not have to hide.

"Hey, mate," he said softly as Charlie approached his side of the bed.

"Can I?" Charlie asked, raising his arms, and Nick reached out and caught hold of him, lifted him easily and tucked him into the space Jen had made between them. The time they'd spent together had given Nick the chance to learn some of his son's idiosyncrasies, to learn how to interpret Charlie's speech, which was growing clearer by the day. He was growing up so fast, and Nick didn't want to miss a minute of it. Beside him Charlie burrowed beneath the duvet and lay back against the pillows, sandwiched between his parents and content.

Before he'd met Charlie, before he and Jen had fallen back together, Nick had not known what it was to love someone, truly. He had not known his heart could feel so much, had not realized his connection to another person could be so unshakable. He adored them both, his child and his child's mother, loved them fiercely, knew without question that he would trade his own life for either of them. Everything he needed, everything he wanted, was in that bed with him.

"Daddy stay?" Charlie asked him, his voice heavy with sleep. Nick and Jen had finally told him the month before, that Nick was his father, and though Charlie hadn't entirely understood what it meant he had taken to calling Nick  _daddy,_ and every time he did Nick felt his heart swell full to bursting with love.

"Daddy has to go to work, mate," he said, somewhat regretfully, reaching out to brush Charlie's dark hair back from his face. He could feel Jen's eyes on him, watching him fondly as he spoke to their son, and he found himself thinking, not for the first time, that he could happily quit his job right there and then, if it meant he could stay in this place, with his family.

"Daddy stay," Charlie said firmly, pouting just a little. This had become a familiar refrain; much to Nick's delight Charlie had warmed to him from the first, and now his son was as eager to spend time with him as Nick was himself. It made Jen happy, he knew, to see how well the pair of them got on, and there were not words for how happy it made Nick.

On the other side of the bed Jen reached for him, her fingertips dragging against his arm until she could catch hold of his hand.

"Hey, Nick?" She said softly, giving his hand a little squeeze, and he looked over at her, at her beautiful smile, her brilliant eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Let's get married."

His mouth dropped open as he stared at her, shell-shocked by how easily, how readily she had said the words. Her eyes were shining as she looked up at him, her gaze open, honest, telling him without need of explanation that she had heard his every argument, and that between his careful wooing of her and his gentle regard for their son he had, somehow, managed to convince her that he was right, that they both of them deserved this hope, this love, this future. There was nothing he wanted more; he was hardly breathing as he looked at her, fancied he could almost feel all the pieces of their lives slotting into place.

"Yeah?" he asked faintly.

"Yeah," she said, nodding.

He could not help himself; he laughed, just a little, breathless and stunned and overcome, and then lifted himself up on his arms to lean over Charlie, and kiss Jen senseless. Beneath him their son wiggled, trying to draw their attention back to himself, and Nick laughed again, more delighted than he could recall having ever been in his entire life. He pulled away from Jen, trying to tell himself that they could save the real celebration for later that night, when they were properly alone and the bedroom door was locked.  _Christ_ , he'd need to buy a ring, and they'd need to talk to Wolfie, need to decide whose house they would live in - hers, he was almost certain, and that thought didn't bother him as much as he once thought it might - but all those questions and details could wait, for Jen had accepted him, and they were going to be  _married._

As he slid back to his side of the bed he stopped just long enough to kiss Charlie's forehead, and then settled back against his own pillows, his heart racing, grinning so wide his cheeks ached with the strain of it.

"What's married?" Charlie asked, looking up at his mother, confused but determined, as ever, to have his answers, to share in the secrets of the grownups who loved him best.

"It means we'll be together, all three of us, forever," Jen said. There were tears in the corners of her eyes, but she was smiling the biggest smile Nick had ever seen, and his heart rejoiced in it.  _Forever,_ she'd said, not scared at the prospect, but just as excited, just as hopeful, just as ready for  _forever_  as Nick was himself.

"Auntie Amy, too?" Charlie asked apprehensively, and Nick just laughed.

"Yeah, mate," he said, ruffling his son's hair. "Auntie Amy, too."

"That's all right, then," Charlie decided.

That morning had started much like any other, but it had quickly become the single best morning of Nick's entire life. Jen loved him, and he loved her, and they were going to be  _married._ The sun was shining, their son was happy and nestled in between them, no one had called from the office, and it was very difficult, in that moment, for him to imagine that anything could ever possibly go wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey," she said softly, coming to stand beside him, leaning back against his desk, her smile soft and warm.  _Christ,_ she was beautiful, and Nick wanted, more than anything, to shout it from the rooftops. He wanted to tell everyone he met that she was  _his,_ that he was  _hers_ , wanted to march right up to Wolfie and announce their engagement, wanted to watch Matt's smug expression dissolve into one of bewilderment, wanted to hear Dunny laugh in disbelief, wanted to take Jen in his arms, slip his ring on her finger, wanted to share this joy, this love, with everyone who mattered to him. So far he had managed, for her sake, to keep his smiles and his delight to himself, to stay focused on the case at hand, and he knew that she appreciated his efforts. Her little smile told him that she was struggling just as he was to keep from grinning every moment, and he took comfort from that, from knowing that she was just as elated, just as ready to take this next step as he was himself.

"Hey," he answered her, his voice just as low and soft as hers had been. It was late afternoon, and while the desks around them were empty the station still surged and swelled with life, the ringing of telephones and the low drone of voices and the steady smack of feet on the lino. This moment of peace, of solitude, would of necessity be brief, but Nick was resolved to savor it, to enjoy every second spent in her company.

"Are you heading out?" she asked. Jen was not looking at him; they were both propped against his desk, their shoulders almost - but not quite - touching, looking out towards the elevators and keeping a watchful eye, hoping not to be disturbed. They were on different cases this week; Jen and Dunny had just wrapped up their investigation and would be doing paperwork until home time, but Matt and Nick had caught a break, and would be going out to conduct a witness interview.

"Soon as Matt gets back from the loo."

"Will you be gone long?" From a distance Nick knew their position appeared perfectly innocent, nothing more than a little chat among colleagues, but Jen had tilted her head ever so slightly towards him, and he could almost catch the soft scent of her hair, could feel her shoulder pressed against his own, and the heat of her so close at hand, the knowledge that they had finally overcome their many obstacles and found a way to move forward together, made his heart race. It was such a simple thing, standing in a familiar place and speaking to the woman he loved, but it was enough to make him long for the comforts of their home, their child, their bed. He was counting down the minutes until they could leave this place, and shed the thin veneer of professionalism they'd wrapped themselves in.

"Shouldn't be more than an hour or two."

Carefully he shifted, innocuously dropped his hand to rest on the desk by his side, but while the gesture was designed to appear inconspicuous it served a greater purpose, for Jen's hand was resting there, too, and he was able to catch her pinky finger with his own, curling them together, enraptured by the sensation of her skin beneath his own. It was the most chaste of connections, but he heard the hitch in Jen's breath, felt the way she responded to him at once, warmth and hope and love flowing from the place where they touched through every inch of their bodies.

"You'll be home in time for dinner, then?" she asked breathlessly.

 _Home,_ she'd said, and Nick's heart rejoiced to hear it. Yes, he would be  _home,_ soon, would return to that place that was suddenly Jen's alone no longer, but  _theirs,_ a place that belonged to both of them, a place where they could both be happy.

 _This can work,_ Nick thought, watching her from the corner of his eye. Yes, they'd been engaged for less than twelve hours, but they'd been together for months, and so far their work had not suffered. Even this clandestine encounter was hardly a sackable offense; they'd become quite adept at finding little moments like this one, finding ways to connect with one another without rubbing their relationship in anyone's face. He was quite certain that their friends had no idea what was brewing between them, and that certainty only reinforced his conviction that they could have it all, work and home, and be content.

"I wouldn't miss it," he answered in a low voice. He'd been looking forward to it since the moment he left her house that morning, the taste of her kiss still lingering on his lips; they needed to break the good news to Amy, and then they needed to celebrate it properly - if quietly - tangled up together beneath Jen's bedsheets. Nick could hardly wait.

"Good," she said, but before she could speak another word Matt appeared, rounding the corner and making a beeline for them. Nick pulled his finger back and then shifted very carefully, rising to his feet slowly and crossing his arms over his chest, the movements smooth and natural, and Matt's expression was friendly and open, as if he had seen nothing amiss.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys.

"Let's do it," he said. And then he added quietly, "see ya later, Jen."

"See ya," she said, smiling.

* * *

"Bloody waste of time," Matt grumbled as he folded himself into the passenger seat of the car. Nick didn't answer; he didn't much care. The witness had given them no new information, but then Nick hadn't really expected him to. They would go back to the station, type up their reports, and then they would go home, start fresh in the morning. There was nothing in the world Nick wanted more. Just another hour or two at the station, and then he could leave, could make his way home to Jen, could walk through the door and bend down to scoop his son up into his arms, carry him laughing into the kitchen, could hold Charlie with one arm and wind the other around Jen's waist and kiss her cheek, could lose himself completely to the joys of his family. For the first time he had something in his life more important than his work, and he could not recall having ever been happier.

He started the car, but before he put it in gear Matt's mobile rang. Nick waited a moment; it might Wolfie or Dunny or Jen with new information, and he didn't want to drive off until he knew for certain where he was going.

"Yeah, boss?" Matt said. It was Wolfie, then; Nick hoped that whatever his reasons for calling Wolfie wasn't about to interfere with his plans for the evening, and so he sat still and quiet, waiting for their marching orders.

" _Jesus,"_ Matt swore, and Nick looked at him sharply. His eyes had gone wide and round and his face had visibly paled. He would not look at Nick, was only staring blankly ahead as if he'd just been felled by some terrible blow, and fear began to swell deep within Nick's chest. Something was wrong; the moment stretched, long and thick, silence heavy in the car as Matt listened to Wolfie and Nick struggled to hear over the sudden pounding of his heart.

"Is she all right?"

 _Oh, god, no,_  Nick thought, wrapping his hands tight around the steering wheel to hide the way they'd suddenly begun to tremble.  _Not now,_  he prayed silently.  _Please, don't take her from me now._ There was only one  _she_ , as far as Nick was concerned; oh, Wolfie could have been calling about Allie, or Waverly, or even Claudia, but somehow Nick didn't think so. Matt's visceral reaction was too personal, too terrified; it could only be Jen. But Nick couldn't understand how she could possibly have gotten herself into trouble; she was supposed to be spending the afternoon at the station, and there was nowhere safer. Unless she'd left already, he realized, unless she'd been on her way home, and some sort of calamity had befallen her. It didn't bear thinking about, the terrible notion that Jen might have been in an accident, might have been grievously injured by some lunatic who wasn't paying attention.

" _Shit,"_ Matt swore again. "All right, we're on our way. We'll be there as soon as we can."

Matt had no sooner ended the call than Nick was speaking.

"What is it?" he asked tersely, his whole body tense and tight and almost vibrating with dread. It wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair, for something terrible to happen to Jen, not now, not on this day that had started so beautifully, so full of promise. She should have been safe at the station, or home with Charlie; she didn't deserve such horror, and Nick could not bear it, not when he'd spent the day so full of hope.  _She'll be all right,_ he tried to tell himself.  _She has to be all right._

"Someone broke into Jen's house," Matt said faintly. "They shot her sister and they...they took Charlie."

_They took Charlie._

Those words set off a roaring in Nick's ears louder than thunder; his vision went black around the edges and for a moment he stopped breathing. He had never, in his life, felt a terror like this one, so visceral, so deep, all-encompassing in its scope. The first day he'd spent with Charlie, the first time he'd actually sat down with the boy, played with him, knowing that Charlie was his flesh and blood, he had felt the nip of fear settle in his gut, had recognized that he would probably spend the rest of his life worried about his son. Even with that knowledge he was in no way prepared for the horror, the rage, the sheer strength of his reaction now. He might have sworn; he wasn't even listening to himself. He'd slammed the car in gear and raced out of the carpark before Matt got his seatbelt drawn; dimly he heard Matt warning him to slow down, but he wasn't listening.

There was only one thought in his head, only one thing that mattered; he had to get to Jen. Someone had shot Amy, sweet, mischievous Amy, Amy whose world was so far removed from the grim, violent reality he and Jen faced every day, Amy who had so many dreams for her future, Amy who Jen relied on so completely. Someone had broken into Jen's  _home,_ the one place in all the world where Nick felt happiest, and done this unspeakable thing, and then they had gone one step further, and snatched Nick's son away. Wolfie might have told Matt to go back to the station, but Nick didn't know, and he didn't care. It didn't matter what Wolfie wanted, Nick needed to go  _home,_ needed to speak to the officers on the scene, needed to find out how this terrible thing had happened. Somehow, though he could not say how exactly, he knew that Jen would be there already; she was too much like him, and she would need him now. He flew down familiar streets, the lights on the dash flashing, tires squealing as he took a curve too fast.

"Damn it, Nick, take it easy!" Matt shouted, hands braced against the dash. "You won't do her any good if you get us killed before we get there."

Nick didn't answer; he couldn't answer. In that moment, speech was quite beyond him. It was need that drove him, the need to see Jen, to touch her, to hold her, the need to work with her and bring their boy back safe,  _now,_  before it was too late.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

That wasn't a question Nick could answer, either. As far as anyone was aware, he had no reason to know where Jen's house was. If they went out for after works drinks they always went together, to the bar down the street or to Matt's. No one went to Jen's house, because her son and sister were there, and she had always taken pains to shield her family from her work. And Nick was just supposed to be a mate, another one of the boys, no more important to her than anyone else. If he'd been thinking more clearly in the moment he might have realized that everything was about to change, that the privacy they'd carefully cultivated for themselves was about to shatter, but as it was such a thought did not even occur to him. Nothing else mattered, in that moment, save for the fierce pain in his chest at the thought of his son in danger, and the wild, desperate need he felt to see Jen's face.


	3. Chapter 3

The moment the car lurched to a stop Nick vaulted from his seat, racing across the grass towards Jen's front door. Matt swore and tried to tear after him, ignoring the strange looks from the multitude of uniformed officers milling about in front of Jen's house. The whole area had been roped off, and there was a team of officers doing a line search down the street, and a pair of them at every door within sight. Standard procedure, in cases of potential child abduction; they had to be sure that Charlie had been taken, not just run off to hide at the sound of gunshots. But though Matt hoped, with everything he had, that they'd find Charlie in the care of some kind neighbor, dread had settled heavy in his gut.

It was just so un-bloody-believable, that someone could have done something like this to  _Charlie,_ to  _Amy,_ to  _Jen._ Matt couldn't wrap his head around it. He'd met Amy a fair few times before, and had always thought she was a sweet, funny sort of girl. A bit wild, a little rough around the edges maybe, but he liked her. And Charlie was the cutest kid he'd ever seen, and the center of Jen's whole world besides. And Jen...Jen was his friend, someone he cared for deeply, someone he'd known for a long time now. Charlie had still been just a baby when she came upstairs to homicide, his father only recently deceased, and Matt couldn't bear the thought of what would become of Jen, if Charlie was taken from her, too. She'd suffered so much already, losing the man she loved enough to have a child with, to lose the child as well would be more than devastating. He could imagine nothing more horrific.

He burst through the door hot on Nick's heels, pausing for a moment at the swarm of activity inside. There were people everywhere, but his eyes found Jen at once. She was standing in the sitting room, talking to Wolfie; she was not crying at the moment, but her hair was a mess and her eyes were a bit wild. Dunny and Allie were there, too, and Nick was racing towards them.

A strange thing happened, then. Jen caught sight of Nick, and her face crumpled, her shoulders sagged, a sudden rush of tears overwhelming her. She only just managed to breathe Nick's name, once, a broken, terrible sound, and then Nick had caught hold of her. With a ferocity Matt never would have expected from his stoic colleague Nick crushed Jen against his chest, one arm around her waist, one hand at the back of her head, holding her tight while her hands fisted in his shirt and she pressed herself against him, sobbing.

It didn't make any sense, Matt thought as he approached them. Sure, Nick and Jen were mates - they all were - but they'd only been working together about a year. They were both a bit private and a bit prickly, good to have on the team but not exactly easy to get to know. Jen guarded her personal life so fiercely, and Nick had never been one to let his emotions show. Usually he was the one who stepped back, who stood calm and quiet while someone else did the ranting or the comforting. Matt had never, ever, seen the pair of them so much as shake hands with one another, had never heard Jen even mention Charlie's name when Nick was around. That was strange, too, he realized; Nick had never asked for an explanation, about Charlie, about Jen's sister, had never asked where they needed to go or directions to get there. He had known, somehow, exactly how to get to Jen's house, and here they were, holding on to one another in an embrace that seemed strangely, alienatingly intimate. Something was wrong, Matt realized. Something was very wrong.

"We'll get him back, Jen," Nick, said his voice harsh and broken as still he held her tight. "I swear to you we'll get him back." That was strange, too, for Matt had never heard such heat, such conviction from Nick. Before now, he'd always thought Nick was a bit of a wet blanket, if he were being honest; Nick responded to long hours and lack of funds and the endless tide of political bullshit they endured in their work with no more than a shrug, never seemed phased no matter how gruesome the crime scene, never talked about his interests or his family or his home. He was quite the least exciting man Matt had ever known, except now, in this moment, there was something about him that seemed almost...dangerous. Matt liked it not one bit.

"Sarge," he said to Wolfie as he reached their little group. At the sound of his voice Nick and Jen seemed to finally come to their senses; Nick took a step back, but as he did he reached out and smoothed his hand over Jen's hair, ducking his head so he could look deeply into her eyes. Matt shifted awkwardly on his feet; he felt almost as if Nick and Jen were speaking to one another, in that moment, without need of words, as if they understood each other on some incomprehensible, intrinsic level, and he did not like the surge of doubt and jealousy he felt, watching them standing together like that.

"Here's where we are," Wolfie said. The five of them, Nick and Jen and Dunny and Allie and Matt, focused their attention on their boss at once, grateful for some direction, the distraction of the job.

"Neighbors reported shots fired at a little past 4:00 this afternoon. They saw a black sedan in the street, no plates. So far no description of the driver, but we're working on it. Amy was shot in the stomach, and she's in emergency surgery now. No sign of Charlie."

Jen lifted her hand to cover her mouth and closed her eyes, but she seemed to be pulling herself together; she'd stopped crying, at least.

"Missing Persons are on their way. They've agreed to let us join the investigation, given our personal knowledge of the victim, but I want to be very clear: they are in charge. You lot do as they say, or I'll have you sent down to Traffic so fast your heads will spin. Understood?"

"Yes, Sarge," they all chorused together, even Jen.  _Christ,_ Matt thought,  _poor Jen._ He knew all too well how awful, how unbearable it was to be no more than a  _victim,_ to sit on the other side of the investigation. The pictures of his family on the board, every inch of his past picked over with a fine toothed comb; he could still recall the taste the bile in the back of his throat, remembering how he'd responded when he found out their victim was actually his mother. Jen had been a godsend to him during those terrible days when the team had been investigating his mother's murder; he only hoped he could be as much a comfort to her now as she had been to him then.

"Jen, I know you know this, but you'll have to give them a formal statement." She nodded, squaring her shoulders, her expression strangely blank as she tried to pull herself together; Matt recognized that expression, for he'd seen her wear it often enough. She had always been like that; she had a soft heart but she was also tough, unbelievably tough, tougher than anyone ever gave her credit for, and he had always admired that about her.

"While we wait, though, I do want to ask a few questions, so we can get started. When was the last time you saw them?"

Jen drew in a very deep breath, and looked right at Wolfie as she answered, and Matt felt suddenly, deeply proud of her, her strength, her resilience.

"This morning," she said. "When we - when I left for work. Amy was going to take Charlie to playgroup, but they were supposed to be back by 2:00."

Dunny and Allie were scribbling in their notebooks and Matt fumbled for his at once, cursing himself for having been so lax. He knew better; every word Jen spoke would need to be documented and recalled as clearly as possible. Such records would be vital to their investigation.

"Did you speak to Amy after you got to work?"

Jen just shook her head.

"All right," Wolfie sighed. "This next question is a bit harder, Jen. I'm sorry. But can you think of anyone who might want to do this? Maybe someone connected to your work?"

Jen shook her head again. "I honestly have no idea," she said desperately. "Dunny and I just wrapped up the Dawkins case, but there's nothing about it that stood out. I haven't seen or heard anything strange, no one following me, nothing." She seemed almost angry about it, as if she wished she  _had_ seen something untoward. That, too, Matt could understand; it was possible, in moments like this, to wish for something terrible, just for the sake of having a lead, someone or something to blame.

"What about Charlie's father?"

Jen went pale as a ghost, her mouth dropping open as she stared aghast at Wolfie. That was too much, for Matt; Jen's heart was obviously hurting, and he hated to see her put to the question this way, even if Wolfie was being as kind as he could under the circumstances.

"Sarge," he started to protest, but, to his dismay, Nick interrupted him at once.

"Sarge," Nick said, and his voice carried with it a great deal more authority than Matt's had done. He wasn't looking at Wolfie, he was looking at Jen, and she was staring right back at him, horror written all over her face. "Maybe Jen could answer that question in private."

It was neither a question nor a suggestion; Nick's tone brooked no argument. For a moment Wolfie gazed at the pair of them, Nick and Jen, clearly trying to get a read on them, and Matt wondered if the Sarge had noticed, as he did, that something seemed to be happening there, something that none of them could understand, something none of them could have foreseen.

"All right," he said carefully. "Let's go into the kitchen, Jen."

He turned away, and so he did not see what Dunny and Allie and Matt saw. He did not see the way Nick and Jen looked at one another, the way Jen reached out and took Nick's hand, the way he nodded and let her lead him with her to the kitchen.

"What the hell?" Allie asked, watching as their friends disappeared, hand-in-hand.

Matt didn't answer her; he couldn't.

* * *

"Something you want to tell me, Jennifer?" Wolfie asked as the three of them came to a stop in the corner of the kitchen, as far from the prying eyes and ears of their team as they could get. It had been foolish, Jen knew, to take Nick's hand there in full view of all and sundry, but she could not let him go. She could not face this, not Wolfie or the team or the uniforms or the roar of horror within her own mind, without him. Never, in all her life, had Jen been as terrified, as shaken, as utterly shattered as she was in that moment, and she needed Nick, needed his comfort and his reassurance and his presence, to keep her together.

At Wolfie's question she looked up at Nick, this man she loved more than anyone else, this man she had agreed to marry only that morning. He did not smile - neither of them were capable of smiling, in that moment - but in his eyes she saw the depth of his love for her, and she knew that he would stand beside her, whatever happened next.

"I'm Charlie's father, Sarge," Nick said simply. It was such a  _Nick_  thing to do; Wolfie had addressed the question to Jen, but Nick had stepped up, had volunteered to take the blow himself, and protect her as best he could.

To his credit Wolfie hardly even reacted to the news. He did not shout or wave his arms, did not let his mouth fall open or his eyes widen in shock. It would take more than this, Jen knew, to throw Stanley Wolfe off his game.

"That's interesting," Wolfie said evenly, "considering you two only met a year ago, and Charlie is four years old."

And there it was. For so long now they had been lying, both of them, about where they'd been, what they'd done. From the moment Jen walked into Matt's house that night she first saw Nick again they had been lying, to their friends, to their superiors. No one knew about their past, for if they had revealed themselves they would have been torn apart, and neither of them could bear such a loss. It was too late for such concerns now, she knew. Everything was at stake, now; what did it matter, if she was demoted or transferred or even booted off the force, so long as she got Charlie back? Her son -  _their son_  - meant everything to both of them, and she could feel Nick's grip on her hand tighten, could feel him standing strong and firm beside her. No, it didn't matter now. Work could hang; Jen wanted only to hold her child again.

"We were undercover together for a year," Nick said. "In 2005. We weren't supposed to see each other again after that."

"That doesn't explain why this is the first I'm hearing of it." Wolfie was one of the gentlest men Jen had ever known, so thoroughly, almost painfully  _good,_ so devoted to his faith, to his sense of compassion. He was not shouting at them, and he would never be cruel to them, but even he had his limits, and she could tell he was frustrated by their revelation.

"That's because-"

"Jen," Nick said warningly, cutting her off before she could tell Wolfie the truth. And though she understood why he had done it, why he was trying to stop her before she revealed too much, she could not help the anger she felt at his interruption. To tell Wolfie the truth now would be to dance terribly close to the line of treason, if not to march directly across it, but Jen didn't  _care._ They could lock her up, if they wanted, throw her to the wolves, so long as they were able to bring Charlie home safe and sound.

"He has to know, Nick," she said simply. He looked at her for a long moment, eyes searching, and she knew then that he was asking himself the same question. What if the person who had taken Charlie was some relic from their past, some old enemy who had discovered the truth about them and sought to lay them low because of it? They couldn't risk keeping this secret, not now. They would have to turn over every rock in their lives, and keep digging until they found what they needed.

"We were seconded to SIS," she said.

And  _that_  surprised Wolfie; she could see the shock in every line of his face.

"We both swore to never tell a soul. We signed the Official Secrets Act. We shouldn't even be telling you this now. But if there's a chance that it could help find Charlie…"

"All right," Wolfie said, crossing his arms over his chest. "All right. Here's what we're going to do."


	4. Chapter 4

Jen's hands were trembling. She'd managed to stem the flood of her tears, drawing strength from the familiar chaos of the station, from the warmth of her friends around her, from the heartbeat of the briefing room and the desperate allure of a plan. So long as she knew there was a plan, a task for her to complete, so long as she knew exactly what was being done to find her son and bring him home to her, she could hold herself together. If there was a job to do Jen would do it, no matter how her heart was breaking, and now that she had been given one she clung to it, with both hands.

There were still dozens of uniformed officers pouring into her neighborhood like flood waters rolling over a dam, but the rest of them had been brought back here, to this place that was so like a second home to her, gathered in the briefing room to receive their marching orders. Wolfie had driven her himself, alone in his car, quiet and gentle as he always was. He had offered, right as they set out, to say a prayer for her. It was a kind offer, a genuine one, and she had thanked him for it, had sat with her hands folded and her head bowed - though her eyes were open, staring blankly at the white of her knuckles - while his soft voice washed over her, beseeching God for the safe return of her son while the city slipped by and the vehicle's wheels turned, drawing them ever closer to their destination. Jen had never gone in for religion; she hadn't been raised in the church, and she'd never felt any particular call toward it, but  _Wolfie_ believed, and she hoped his belief would be enough. In that moment, she would gladly accept help from any quarter.

It hadn't escaped her notice, though, that Wolfie had quite deliberately kept her apart from Nick. They had not been allowed a moment alone, from the instant their confession was made; Stanley placed some calls and directed Jen to sit on the sofa, and when Nick went to join her Wolfie had caught him by the arm, and shook his head, silently denying Nick and Jen that comfort. When the time came to leave, he had directed Nick to give his keys to Matt, to have Matt drive him back to the station, and steered Jen away from him. She understood why he had done it; there was a protocol to be observed, and Wolfie would not jeopardize their investigation, would not have it tainted in any way. Perhaps she should have been grateful for his dedication, but she longed, more than anything, to go to Nick, to let him wrap her in his arms, and her heart broke with every second she was forced to spend away from him.

Even in the briefing room they had been neatly, discreetly separated. Jen was sitting at the table, Matt on one side of her and Dunny on the other, Allie and Rhys on the opposite side of the table with Jarvis. Waverly sat at the head of the table, and one of the Missing Persons officers sat on the other end. Wolfie and Nick were leaning against the far wall, too far away for Jen to reach for him. Every last inch of available space was taken up by the detectives from Missing Persons. Someone had taken a photograph of Charlie - the one she'd handed to the first officer on the scene, she thought - and taped it to the whiteboard. It was every detective's worst nightmare, to walk into that room and see their own family up on that board, and now that nightmare had become Jen's life. She couldn't bring herself to look at the photo, to see her son's sweet face, his chubby cheeks, his dark hair and eyes so reminiscent of his father. She could not look at that picture, could not see his little smile frozen in time, for fear that the absence of him might break her clean in half.

They were waiting, all of them, for Mark Howard, the Missing Persons Sergeant who would be leading the investigation. A call had come in for him, just before the briefing was set to start, and he loitered in the bullpen, pacing just out of sight of the windows with his mobile pressed to his ear. The waiting was agony, but Jen knew it was important that she control herself, that she keep her outbursts to a minimum, at least in this room; if they thought her too volatile they would deny her even this courtesy, would cut her off from all information completely, and she could not bear it. If they forced her out, left her in the dark, she feared she might well go mad. And so she kept her angry thoughts to herself, did not slam her chair back and pace around the room, did not demand to know what was taking so long; she sat still and tense, her hands clasped together on the table in front of her. From across the room she could feel the weight of Nick's gaze heavy upon her, but she did not meet his eye; there were too many people crammed into that space, too many other eyes watching, and what she felt for Nick, the depth of her love for him, was not something she wanted to share with all of these on-lookers. The seconds dragged by, each one a little eternity; perhaps she did not appear as calm as she might have wished for beside her Matt shifted, and reached out to cover her folded hands with one of his own. He gave her a gentle little squeeze and she looked at him sharply, wanting to tell him to get his hands off her, wanting to throw his comfort back in his face, but his expression was so earnest and sweet that she swallowed her rebukes; however distressed, terrified, devastated, out of sorts she might have been, she knew that Matt meant well, that he was only trying to support her as she had once supported him, and she knew that she should be grateful, to have such friends. Jen could not manage even a small smile, but she gave him a little nod, and she rather thought he understood.

"Right, let's get to it." Mark Howard was back, striding through the doorway like he owned the building, tall and dressed in a dark suit that Jen was sure would have met with Dunny's approval. "First thing's first."

He made introductions, pointing to each member of his team in turn. Stanley did the same for his team, though he did not give Jen's name. Perhaps he felt he didn't have to; at this point, everyone in that room knew exactly who she was, why she was there. And she hated it, fiercely, hated the pity and the uncertainty and the fear that swirled around her each time she accidentally caught someone's eye. They were treating her as if she were fragile, as if at any second she might break; maybe they were right, she realized. Maybe she would shatter, before this night was through.

"I've talked to Jarvis, and we're all going to work together on this. Given that Detective Mapplethorpe has been with Homicide for several years now and you lot are familiar with her cases, and that's where you'll start."

"Sergeant Ryan, Detective Freeman, you two are going to work with Jarvis. We've pulled all of Jen's cases since she first came to Homicide. You'll go through the notes, see if there's any red flags. Detectives Kingston and Levitt, you'll be going through the files from Fraud. Commander Waverly will assist with interdepartmental cooperation and will be handling the press."

They were only looking at  _her_  files, then. She looked up, briefly caught Nick's eye, a question passing in the air between them. No one knew, yet, that Nick was Charlie's father, no one but Wolfie. Should she protest, point out to them that they ought to look at Nick's case files as well, that they should leave no stone unturned? Surely, she thought, that idea would have occurred to Wolfie already; why wasn't he saying anything?

"Sorry we're late," a new voice said, and Jen tore her eyes away from Nick. There were two men she'd never seen before leaning in the doorway, both of them wearing dark trousers and dark button down shirts with lanyards holding identification cards slung around their necks. "Glenn and Regis, Counterterrorism," the man on the left continued, identifying himself and his compatriot.

 _Like hell,_ Jen thought as she looked at them. Everything about them screamed SIS to her, but of course they wouldn't announce it,  _couldn't_  announce it, would cover themselves at any cost.

"Detective Mapplethorpe was seconded to Counterterrorism last year," Wolfie explained. "We can't ignore the possibility that there might be a connection but we can't access their files. Detectives Glenn and Regis are on loan to us, and they will pass on any relevant information should they find it."

It was a smooth explanation, and everyone else in the room swallowed it without question. And why should they doubt it? Matt and Dunny and Allie, they all knew she'd gone down to Counterterrorism, all knew about the long months she'd spent cut off from the team that was as good as her family. But they could not know, could not even imagine, the bigger, darker secret that lurked in her past. Perhaps that was for the best; this way she would know that this catastrophe was being investigated from every possible angle, and she would not be forced to reveal her secrets.

"Newsom and Bricks, you'll be taking Detective Mapplethorpe to interview," Sergeant Howard said, drawing everyone's attention back to himself and smoothly reasserting his authority.

"I'll be observing that interview," Waverly interrupted him almost at once. It seemed equal parts blessing and curse, to Jen's mind, that Waverly would be watching while she spoke to Missing Persons. It would be nice, she supposed, to have someone in her corner, to know that she wasn't alone, but the thought of laying her personal life on the table while Commander Waverly looked on - Commander Waverly who had lost a son of her own, Jen realized with a sudden wash of horror, lost him to unthinkable violence, and  _oh, God,_  she prayed,  _please keep Charlie safe, please don't let him end up like Josh. Please don't let me end up like her._  It was unkind, she knew, but she had watched Waverly claw her way back from the very brink of ruination, had seen the way the Commander buried herself in her work, because she had nothing left to go home to. Jen wasn't sure she could be so strong herself, should she face such devastation. And if Charlie was returned to her, how could she ever look Waverly in the eye again, knowing she had been granted this gift, this joy, when Waverly had been dealt such an unfathomable grief?

"Janis and Davies, you'll be interviewing Detective Buchanan."

It was the second blow in as many minutes, and Jen's thoughts began to race. A murmur seemed to travel across the room, from one end to the other; no one spoke outright, but every body in that place shifted, tensed, two dozen people suddenly curious and confused. That confusion ran like a current, in the turning of heads and the tapping of fingers and the cocking of eyebrows, questions bouncing round and round all of their minds so loudly that for one mad moment Jen almost thought she could hear them.

"And I will be observing that interview," Wolfie said heavily.

"But, Sarge," Matt said, and of course he did, of course he couldn't keep his mouth shut, couldn't accept what he'd been told. Matt always needed to know  _why;_  he wasn't particularly rebellious, he was just entitled, always, believed he deserved an explanation even when none was offered. "Why Nick? Is all of Homicide going to be interviewed?"

 _It's not a stupid question,_ Jen told herself firmly, her fingers wrapped so tightly together they were starting to go numb.  _It's not._  It sounded stupid, simple, vapid to her ears, but she tried to remind herself that it wasn't; Matt did not know, could not have known, why Nick had been singled out, and he had recognized the disparity at once, and leapt to the most obvious conclusion. Likely he was thinking, even now, that Missing Persons meant to pick their brains, all of them, one by one, to try to find some evidence that might aid them in their search, and maybe eventually they would. Not now, thought. Not yet. First they had to interview the family.

"No, Sergeant," Wolfie answered heavily. He squared his shoulders, and faced the whole room as he spoke the words that shattered what little remained of Jen's privacy. "Let's just get this out of the way now. Detective Buchanan is the child's father."

Beside her Matt recoiled as if he'd been struck, spluttering just a little, and she knew if she looked at him she would see shock and betrayal and hurt written on every line of his face. But she couldn't look at him, or Dunny, couldn't look at Allie or Rhys, damn sure couldn't look at Waverly. She couldn't face their questions, their concerns, could not find the words to explain herself or the strength to put up a defense.  _We thought we knew you,_ she could almost hear them accusing. And after that, under that, the words she longed to shout, viciously, angrily;  _you don't know me at all._

"Right," Howard said. "That's that. You all know what to do. Let's go."

And so they did.


	5. Chapter 5

"Detective Buchanan, when did you last see the child?"

Nick took one steady breath, his hands flat on the table in front of him, his eyes trained on Detective Janis. It was unsettling, to say the least, to find himself sitting on this side of an interview, to see someone else using familiar training techniques on  _him._ Oh, he wasn't a suspect - yet - but he hadn't been entirely cleared, and he knew exactly what Janis was doing. They wanted to establish a timeline, and they wanted to determine just how involved Nick was in his son's life. If the answer was  _last week_ or  _last month,_ it would appear he had only a tangential relationship with Charlie, that he wasn't particularly interested in being a father. The truth was something else entirely, and Nick knew it, and soon they would, too, and his answer would give rise to more questions, as they poked and prodded around in his life. And as much as he resented it personally, he understood it professionally, and so he could not fault them for the forthcoming invasion of his privacy. He  _did_  however take offense at the way Janis had referred to Charlie as  _the child._ It was clinical, impersonal, designed to elicit a response. They wanted to see if he was quick to anger, or if he was cold, wanted to peel back the layer of calm he'd shrouded himself in and reveal the emotions underneath. Most interviews were adversarial, sparring matches really as each party tried to outmaneuver the other, but Nick had no time for such games. His pride was meaningless in the face of the task before him; the only thing that mattered was finding Charlie.

"I saw him this morning, before I left for work."

Davies scribbled something in his notebook, but did not speak. The roles the two Missing Persons detectives intended to play had become clear to Nick as well; Janis was in charge, and he would ask the questions until a moment when Davies could step in and neatly throw Nick off balance. Nick and Jen had done much the same themselves, more times than he could count, but Nick wasn't sure whether his experience as a detective would be a hindrance or a help, just now. It wasn't a game, and if Janis and Davies wanted to make it into one, Nick had no intention of playing.

"You were in Detective Mapplethorpe's home this morning?"

"Yes."

"You spent the night there?"

"Yes."

Davies was still scribbling. Janis leaned towards him, as if he'd sensed some sort of advantage.

"You spend the night there often?"

Nick did not shift uncomfortably, did not cough or blink, did not look away from his interrogators. It would not do, he thought, to show shame in that moment, for he felt none. Yes, Stanley Wolfe was standing on the other side of the glass - and probably at least one other member of their team besides - listening closely as the questions and answers flew back and forth across the table. Yes, what Nick was about to say would land both he and Jen in hot water, would reveal the depth of their relationship and by extension the depth of their deception. They could both be reprimanded, for what he was about to say. They would almost certainly lose the trust of their team and their commanding officers, at least for a little while, as those who were nearest and dearest to them nursed the wounds caused by such a betrayal. But he did not,  _could_ not feel ashamed, not for this. He loved his family, with everything he had, Jen and Charlie both, and it was high time he admitted it.

"Most nights," he answered evenly.

"What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Detective Mapplethorpe?" Davies asked, not looking up from his notes.

"As of this morning, she's my fiance."

So far Nick had remained steady despite the barrage of questions, but it seemed Davies and Janis were both rattled by his confession. They looked at one another sharply for a moment, as if silently debating their next move.

"You proposed this morning?" Janis asked, and Nick could not fault him for the incredulity in his voice. What sort of man proposes on an unremarkable weekday morning, without a ring, without some grand display? These men could not even begin to understand what she meant to him, what he meant to her, the connection that flowed between them, the life they'd slowly built for themselves despite all the obstacles in their path. These men did not deserve to know it, either, as far as Nick was concerned. Their constant hammering about Jen was beginning to grate on his nerves; there were other, more pressing topics he wished they would pursue, but they seemed to have latched onto the idea of an illicit liaison between colleagues, and all the drama that implied.

"Yes. I've asked her before, but she said yes this morning."

"How long have you been sleeping with Detective Mapplethorpe?"

Nick leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. Whatever they asked of him he knew he had to answer it, and he was trying his very best to tamp down on his frustration, though it was becoming harder by the second.

"About six months."

"Tell us about Charlie," Davies said. "How you and Detective Mapplethorpe met, how you came to have a child."

"We were undercover together, four years ago." Davies went rifling through one of the files in front of him; Nick's personnel file, no doubt. Of course, there would be no sign of that operation in his file, and so he continued without prompting. "You won't find a record of it in there," he said. "It was a...sensitive operation. Sergeant Wolfe is aware of the details and he can provide them if you need them. We were undercover as a married couple for a year."

"And you slept together."

It wasn't a question, and the statement - coming from Janis, this time - carried with it a great deal of judgment. Nick knew how it looked, knew they must even now be thinking he was some sort of rotter who couldn't keep it in his pants, who used his cover to his advantage and wound up with consequences he might not want to face.

"I fell in love with her," he answered carefully.

Their expressions told him they didn't entirely believe him, but they did not choose to pursue the matter of his feelings any further.

"And then what happened?"

"The operation ended. We were told not to have any further contact. I couldn't have found her even if I wanted to. I didn't know her real name, and I didn't know where she worked."

"You didn't know about Charlie?"

"No. Not until Jen came back from her secondment to Counterterrorism."

The scratching of Davies's pen across the page was beginning to set Nick's teeth on edge.

"That must have been a surprise," Janis said, his tone almost wheedling, as if he sensed some sort of weakness and sought to draw it into the light. "You come into work one day and find out the woman you slept with years before is on your team, and raising your child."

"It was a surprise, but I wasn't unhappy about it. I love Jen, and I love Charlie."

* * *

_I love Jen._

Matt could hardly believe his ears. He was standing next to Wolfe, watching through the glass as Davies and Janis put Nick through his paces, as everything Matt thought he knew about his friends dissolved into confusion. It didn't seem real, didn't seem possible that they could have kept such a secret from the team - from  _him_ \- for so long, and if he were being honest about it he would have to admit that he was wounded by their lies. For the had been lying, for over a year now. He had thought that Nick was no more than a mate to Jen, had thought that the man had listened to him when he'd warned him off her that night they first met. Or, he realized, the night they'd been reunited.  _Christ,_ he must have looked so foolish, telling Nick not to pursue her when the truth was they'd already known one another for years, had already slept together and would do so again not long after that conversation. That Nick had kept such a secret wasn't so surprising, really, for he was by nature a private sort of person, and never discussed him home life. Jen, though...Jen was his  _friend,_  a good friend, a friend he thought he could trust, rely on, for anything. A friend he had wished, more than once, could be something more than just a friend. But Jen had kindly turned him down, had seemed almost regretful as she insisted on following the rules. And it hit him, then, that perhaps Jen had not rejected him because of the regulations, but because she had already given her heart to another. It was humiliating, really, to think he had risked his pride and asked her out, and she might have looked on him with pity, compared him to Nick and found him wanting.

 _It doesn't matter,_ he told himself sternly.  _We've got a job to do._

"But you've been working together for over a year and neither of you disclosed your relationship or the fact that Charlie is your child to your superiors."

"We needed time," Nick said, and Matt found the tiniest seed of resentment beginning to grow in his chest. How could it be, he wondered, that Nick could be so calm, so focused? When the team had investigated his mother's murder Matt had been a nervous wreck, had gone rogue, desperate for answers, and yet here Nick sat, arms crossed, voice steady, apparently unfazed. Matt wanted to shout at him, wanted to shake him, wanted to demand an accounting from him for the lies that he had told, the secrets he had kept, but they were separated by the glass, and there was no time for such a display.

"We hadn't seen each other in a long time. We needed to get to know one another again, and Jen needed to see that she could trust me with Charlie."

"And could she? Trust you, I mean. After all, you thought you'd never see her again, and then she turns up with a kid in tow. That must have been difficult."

A muscle twitched in Nick's jaw, his composure slowly slipping, and while a petty part of Matt's heart was relieved to see it the rational side of him worried for his friend. It would not do them any good if Nick lost his composure now, if he was to become aggressive. Before this moment Matt would have said Nick didn't have an aggressive bone in his body, but he had to admit that perhaps he did not know the man as well as he'd thought.

"It was a surprise," he said again, "but it was a good one. I love my son."

"You don't wish it could just be you and her again, the way it used to be? You slept with her before you ever even knew her, and a kid can be a hassle. You sure you just didn't want a good root, without all the baggage?"

Stanley grumbled, clearly displeased with the turn of the questions, but Matt could not think of a single thing to say. It was like watching a train wreck, he thought, heinous and captivating, and sure to end in grief.

"I love my family-"

"Come on, Buchanan," Davies interrupted, suddenly antagonistic; it was a classic interview tactic, but it left a bad taste in Matt's mouth just the same. "We all know most of the time when a kid goes missing it's someone in the family that's done it. Dad gets tired of listening to the kid whine, gets tired of dealing with his wife after she's gone off sex and all she talks about is the baby, decides to make things easy for himself-"

"You get tired of having to share her with the kid? I mean, she's a good looking woman, maybe you thought she'd been more likely to give it up without the little ankle-biter. She must have been a tart, letting you root her when she didn't even know your name, and now-"

Much to Matt's horror, it seemed the baiting did the trick. It was as if something inside of Nick had snapped; he lunged forward, the chair making a horrible clatter as it flew out from under him and skittered across the floor, his expression very nearly a snarl. He slammed both his hands down on the table with enough force to send some of Davies's papers fluttering to the floor, leaning over so that he was right in Janis's face.

"You're here to find my son," he growled, and the sound of his rage, so different from his usual quiet, reserved murmur, sent a chill racing down Matt's spine. "Ask your bloody questions but don't you dare insult my wife."

"She's not really your wife, is she though, Nick?" Davies asked mildly, shuffling his papers. "Not yet, anyway. You get a little confused, sometimes? Forget what is and isn't real?"

Nick was still leaning heavily on the table, and for the first time since Matt had met him he looked somehow dangerous. Funny that, he thought, how Nick had always been this tall, this broad, but he had never seemed like a threat until now. Maybe, Matt realized, it was because before now he hadn't wanted to be. Maybe this anger, this latent aggression, had always been there, waiting.

"I would not hurt my son. Not ever, not for anything. And I would never hurt Jen. And if we don't find Charlie soon, it's going to kill her."

With those ominous words he turned away, gathered his chair and his composure and then settled back into his place at the table.

"Who would want to hurt them then, Nick?" Janis asked.


	6. Chapter 6

"Detective Mapplethorpe, when did you last speak to your sister?" Newsom asked, continuing on with her endless questions. She was clearly running things in this interview. The reasons for it didn't escape Jen's notice; of course they handed her interview to the only female detective on the Missing Person's team assigned to Charlie's case. Perhaps they thought that Detective Newsom, with her soft brown hair and sympathetic eyes, would make Jen more comfortable. Perhaps they thought that Jen might see Detective Newsom as a kindred spirit, given that the pair of them belonged to a rather small sisterhood of female detectives, that they both understood and shared the experiences of a woman trying to find success in a male-dominated world. Perhaps they'd thought any number of things, but they were all wrong, because Jen felt no connection to Detective Newsom whatsoever. This woman was a stranger to her, and could not possibly hope to know how Jen felt. No one else in that building could possibly know what she felt, except for Nick, and Bernice Waverly. No one else could ever understand this terror, this dread, the trembling of her hands, the racing of her heart.

Wolfie had asked her the same question less than two hours before, but Jen did not let her frustration with the repetitive inquiries show. She'd had to explain herself to the first officer on scene, so he would know who to call, what to do, how quickly to move. She'd had to explain herself to Wolfie, so that he could check what she told him against what she'd already told the first man, so that he could marshal his troops. She had to explain herself to Newsom now so that her statement could be recorded, and once again checked against every other word she'd spoken so far. If they were looking for holes in her story they weren't going to find them; she had told the truth, each and every time, and she would continue to tell the truth until her son was found.

"Around 7:30 this morning. We had breakfast together, and then I left for work."

"When you say 'we', you mean yourself, your sister, and…" Newsom left it hanging, offering Jen an encouraging little smile while Detective Bricks scribbled in his notebook.

"And Charlie, and Detective Buchanan."

There was no point in hiding it, she knew. The truth about Nick's connection to Charlie was out there, now, and he was being interviewed at that very moment. He would tell the truth; he always did. Lying now would only waste time and breed contempt among the very people who were supposed to help them.

"Detective Buchanan spent the night at your home?" Newsom prodded her carefully.

Jen ground her teeth in frustration.

"Yes."

"Does he spend the night often?"

"Most nights."

Had it only been that morning, she wondered, when Nick had so gently asked her to marry him, when she had accepted him, when they had been snuggled up in bed together warm and soft with Charlie between them? It seemed like it had been years since that beautiful morning, like decades, a whole eternity had passed, her soul withering by the second.

"How long has that been going on?"

"About six months."

_Six months, or four years, depending on how you look at it._

"What sort of father is Detective Buchanan?"

Jen took a deep breath and tried to remind herself that if she were in Newsom's shoes she'd be asking the same questions. It was important for them to rule out the immediate family, to narrow down their search. Part of her was offended on Nick's behalf, outraged that they even felt they had to ask, but a far more practical part of her understood, and she tried to be patient.

"The best," she answered firmly. "Nick loves Charlie, and Charlie loves him. Nick is the best father I could ever have imagined for my child, and he would never do anything to hurt him."

Detective Newsom nodded, and, apparently satisfied with that answer, she picked up a different line of questioning. "And he gets along with Amy?"

"Yes," Jen answered.  _Yes,_ they got along, Nick and Amy. They'd tease each other while they washed the dishes and laugh when they passed food at the dinner table, and Nick never left the seat up on the toilet and every time he got a beer out of the fridge he brought one for Amy, too. Amy had been quietly cheering the pair of them on since Nick first turned up at their door, and Nick had been courteous and kind to her every moment. The arrangement might seem strange to outsiders, but it was working for them, and they had all been happy.

Only now someone had shot Amy, sweet, funny, flighty Amy, left her fighting for her life in a hospital while Nick and Jen both languished in interview rooms, desperate for news of her prognosis, desperate for word of their son, heartsick and worried out of their minds.

"Does Amy have a boyfriend?"

Jen shook her head. "No. It's been months since the last time she went out a date, and she hasn't had a steady boyfriend since uni."

The scratching of Detective Bricks's pen against his notepad was beginning to grate on Jen's nerves.

"Is there anyone you could think of who might want to hurt her?"

Again, Jen shook her head. "She's got a few good friends, but she keeps to herself. She's always stuck to herself, mostly."

"No drugs or gambling? Doesn't owe money to anyone?"

"No. Absolutely not. When she's not looking after Charlie she's either working or going out with her friends. And they're good people, none of them would hurt a fly."

 _And I'm going to have to call them all, when this is through,_ she thought glumly. One way or another the people in Amy's life would have to be told, but whether they would be told of her recovery or her funeral remained to be seen. Tears bit at the corners of Jen's eyes; she'd been so caught up in worrying about Charlie that until now she'd managed to push her fears for Amy to the side. Not any more, though; all she could think about now was her sweet sister, how terrified Amy must have been. How much did she see? Did she know what had happened? Could she feel how badly she'd been injured? Jen had been shot before, but it had only been a graze, and that alone had hurt like hell. A bullet to the gut was something altogether more serious, and Amy never should have been in a position to find out how it felt. She was supposed to be safe and happy, far away from the world of darkness and violence that Nick and Jen inhabited.

"Your colleagues are going through your files now, Detective. They'll be looking for signs of anyone who might hold a grudge. Can you think of anyone who stands out?"

Jen had been asking herself that same question from the moment she stepped back inside the station. Who would take Charlie? Why? Was it just a coincidence, or was someone gunning for her? She wished she could come up with a name. Her files were full of people who had every reason to hate her, murderers she'd locked away, families destroyed in the process, grieving fathers whose children's killers had never been found. But not one name stood out among the rest. There was not one single face, not one single case that seemed to merit this kind of rage, this kind of determination to ruin her so completely.

"There's no one," she said, wishing it weren't so.

* * *

"Let's go back to the beginning," Detective Newsom said. As she watched from the observation room, every question, every answer, every gesture playing out on the video screen in front of her, Bernice could almost feel Detective Mapplethorpe's frustration. It was a situation all too familiar to her, a whole host of horrible, viscerally painful memories dragged to the surface as she watched Jennifer answer the same questions that she had once faced herself. When it was her in that chair, when it was Josh who was missing, Bernice had torn herself apart trying to come up with some answer. And she never would have found it on her own, she knew, would never have been able to identify her son's kidnapper - his  _killer_ \- if the man had not been so arrogant, so desperate for recognition that he left a trail of clues behind him. It seemed wrong, somehow, to pray that whoever had done this to Jennifer and Nick might be just as cocky, just as heartless, as... _that man_  had been, but they needed a lead.

"Would you say you have a routine? Do you leave the house in the morning and come home at the same time every day?"

Bernice almost laughed as Jen answered the question; of course she didn't. None of them did. They did their work, for as long as they could, as long as they had to, as long as it took, and routines and family and life outside the station all took a backseat. It was the work that came first, always, and everything else that suffered.

Except that somehow, miraculously, Nick and Jennifer had found time for a private life. They had managed, for over a year now, to keep their history a secret, had managed to go home to one another more often than not and never let on at work. It was quite a feat; there had been plenty of people under her command over the years who thought they were special, who thought the rules didn't apply to them, who thought that they could carry on an affair with a colleague and no one would know, and as far as Bernice could reckon none of them had managed to keep things under wraps for longer than a month. Nick and Jennifer, though, they'd been sleeping together for six months, and if it hadn't been for this fiasco they likely would have carried on quite comfortably with no one the wiser. It spoke to their professionalism, she thought, that they could put the job first while they were on duty, but it also spoke to the strength of their connection. There had been no jealousy, no squabbling, no clinging affection, no mooning looks, no shenanigans in the breakroom or vying to be placed on the same cases. They had to be steady, she thought, to carry on this way. They had to be committed to their work, and sure of their connection to one another. They had to be, she realized, quite completely in love with one another.

And she could not begrudge them that. The work had not suffered, and if everyone made it through this debacle unscathed she had no intention of separating them.

 _One thing at a time,_ she reminded herself. She was listening in on the interview for Jennifer's sake; at a moment like this, Detective Mapplethorpe needed someone in her corner. The team had stood by Bernice when she faced her own hell, and she would do the same for them. If she didn't like the tone of the questions, if they pushed too hard, she was prepared to step in and defend her own. But Jennifer was handling herself quite well, so far. She was obviously shaken but she was answering each question clearly and earnestly, and Bernice gave thanks for small mercies.

Before this day, she'd never seen a picture of Jennifer's son. She knew the boy existed, of course, but Jennifer did not speak of him often. Whether that was out of deference to Bernice's own personal wounds or out of a desire to protect him from the life she led Bernice could not say, but either way she could understand it, and she could appreciate it. Now, though, she'd seen the child's face. His chubby cheeks, his dark eyes, his unruly hair, he had seemed to be the very essence of childhood innocence, and when Jennifer spoke about him Bernice could hear the depth of love in her voice. It was obvious Jennifer loved her son with everything she had, and Bernice knew enough about her to know that she would not have even entertained the notion of a relationship with Nick if he did not also adore their son. And now, their hearts were grieving, devastated and terrified. It was a terror no one should ever have to face, she thought.

 _Bring him home,_ she prayed quietly. She didn't share Stanley Wolfe's faith, but in that moment she felt there was nothing else she could do.  _Please, God, bring that little boy home safe._ The alternative was unthinkable, as she knew all too well.


	7. Chapter 7

"You really didn't know?" Allie asked tightly, irritatedly, as she flipped through the file in front of her. They were standing together in the briefing room, command central for the search, phones ringing and voices calling all around them. They were standing together, Allie and Duncan and Matt and Rhys, each of them with a box of files on the table in front of them, and a dozen more piled up in the corner. It was a daunting task, going through each and every one of those files; they'd broken it up between them, Allie and Rhys tackling Jen's Fraud cases while Matt and Duncan took Nick and Jen's combined Homicide files, but there were just so bloody many of them. Not as many as they'd had to slog through when someone took a hit out on Jarvis, but still. It was more than enough to keep them busy. To keep them trapped together, sweat beading on the back of Matt's neck, while the Missing Persons goons were actually working, out in the street, interviewing people and - hopefully, maybe,  _potentially -_  making progress.

"Allie," Duncan said, a note of warning in his tone. He didn't answer her question outright, but he didn't need to;  _no,_ they really hadn't known.  _No,_ none of them had any bloody idea that this was going on right under their noses, that Nick and Jen had been sleeping together for months, that they had a child, a whole life their team had never even imagined.  _No,_ before this day, Matt had not had so much as an inkling that something like this might afoot, and he was kicking himself for being so thick.

"I told you I thought they were shagging," Allie grumbled. "After she got shot, I told you they were being weird, but you laughed at me."

"What do you want, Kingston, a medal?" Matt fired back, bitter and unable to control himself. Allie rubbed him the wrong way most days, and most days he could keep that to himself, but today it was too much. It was all too bloody  _much,_ Amy shot and Charlie missing and Nick and Jen wrapped up in one another, and the rest of them bumbling around in the dark.

"I'm just saying, we're detectives, we should have spotted it."

"It doesn't matter now, Allie." Rhys's tone was far more conciliatory than Matt's had been, and Matt didn't care for that either. "Just focus on the files, all right?"

"Yeah, anybody got any leads?" Duncan asked, throwing aside the file he'd been holding and reaching for a new one.

"Fraud is bloody boring. Half these guys didn't even see jail time." It might have made for boring reading according to Allie's standards, but Matt reckoned that was a good thing; if they could discount the Fraud files, it would help them whittle down their search. He didn't think it likely that whoever had done this thing, this terrible, unthinkable thing, was a Fraud suspect, anyway. They were mostly white collar guys, skimming off company accounts, with a few hackers thrown in for good measure. They weren't the sort of people who went around shooting unarmed girls and kidnapping toddlers. No, it would be one of the murder cases, he was sure. Just not the one he was holding; the notes at the end of this file explained that the murderer in this case had died in prison, and he'd had no family to speak of. Matt threw the file into the "unlikely" pile, and moved on to the next one.

"What about that guy from Arundel?" Duncan asked, turning to Matt suddenly. "Van Der-what's-it. You remember."

Matt's blood ran cold. "Van Der Burgh," he said. Of course he remembered; it had been years, but they'd encountered the man during those heady days when he'd been half in love with Jen, and the whole thing had scared him shitless. He'd been worried she could get hurt, worried she'd get reprimanded and removed from the team, worried by the thought of all the secrets she'd kept that he'd never been privy to. Secrets like that one, that she'd had an affair with a married man, a man who'd later killed his wife, a man who still seemed fixated on her. He didn't think it mattered, in the long run; Van Der Burgh had died in that prison, and Jen's secret had been neatly swept under the rug. He hadn't seemed the sort to have friends who'd kill or kidnap for him, so many years later. But what if there was someone? A friend, a lover, someone who blamed Jen for his death, who found out about Charlie, about Jen's new man, and decided to enact some bizarre form of revenge?

"Who's Van Der Burgh?" Allie asked, suddenly keen, a sharp, curious glint in her eye Matt liked not one bit. He ignored her completely.

"Nah, I don't think it's likely," he told Duncan. "He's dead, kids were taken in by a family member who didn't want anything to do with him."

"Fraud or Homicide?" Rhys asked. He was a quick one, that Rhys; he was just as curious as Allie, only he knew how to be less annoying about it.

"Homicide, technically," Duncan said. He offered up no more details than Matt had done. In the beginning, Duncan and Jen had all but hated one another, but time and proximity had smoothed their rough edges, and they were close now, and Duncan, like Matt, would keep her secrets.

"Might be worth checking the file for accomplices anyway. I'll call down to records," he said, turning away.

"And I'll try to find Endicott's file while you're at it," Matt added quickly. The name had come to him as if out of the blue, tugging at his memory while he thought about the old cases, the early cases, the ones that had put Jen in danger. Endicott was the man who'd murdered his wife, who'd stalked Jen, killed her bloody cat, nearly killed  _her._ He'd taken a deal, five years in exchange for the location of his family's remains. Five bloody years. At the time they'd tried to swallow it, tried to tell themselves that man like him, a man who'd killed a child, wouldn't last five years in prison, but he couldn't recall now if he'd ever heard that Endicott was actually dead. It was an unsettling thought. From the look on Duncan's face it troubled him just as much as it did Matt. He nodded, and then left to make his call.

"That doesn't help, you know," Allie told Matt pointedly. "It's bad enough we've got Nick and Jen keeping secrets from the rest of us, now the two of you-"

"You know how it is, Allie," Matt interrupted her at once. "Jen's a part of the team. And you don't dog on your teammates."

 _You aren't supposed to shag them, or lie to them either,_  he thought, though wisely he kept those words to himself.

"I'm part of the team, too."

Matt just hummed, and went back to scanning the inventory list, looking for Endicott's name and the corresponding box number where he could find the file.

* * *

When the interview was finally through, when they'd had their fun with him and gathered all the information he had to give, a uniformed officer escorted Nick to one of the rooms they used for the softball interviews, the rooms where they'd speak to victims and their families, let them sit in plush chairs and sip cups of tea and try to give them some sense of comfort while also keeping them contained at the station. It didn't escape Nick's notice that they weren't letting him go back to his desk, or to the briefing room to help with the files; he wasn't a detective, just now. He was a father, grieving, out of his mind with worry, and to the men in charge that made him a liability. He could understand it, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

There was a surprise waiting for him in that room, however; it wasn't empty. Jen was perched on the edge of the short sofa, hands wrapped tight around a cup of tea, though she set the cup on the table and rose unsteadily to her feet the moment he walked through the door. It didn't matter, any more, he thought, whether anyone saw him hold her, touch her, speak to her softly; they all knew the truth, and comforting her now would cost him nothing. So he stepped away from his escort and went straight to Jen, wrapping her in his arms. She collapsed against his chest, her head nestled just under his chin, her hands fisting in the back of his shirt just as they had done when he'd come to her house. He didn't speak; he couldn't. There were not words for this, nothing he could say that had not already been said, nothing that could convey the depth of their grief, his desperate need to make things better and the howling rage he felt, knowing he could not. So he just held her, and she clung to him.

Behind him the door closed softly, but he knew the uniformed officer had not left; he could feel her presence lurking just there. Likely someone had decided that he and Jen ought not be left alone, that anything they said to one another should be observed, just in case. If he were the one running the operation he would have done the same, but still, the lack of trust rankled. After a few moments he pulled back, ran his hand over Jen's hair while she lifted her chin to look at him, her eyes wide and hopeless.

"You all right?" she asked him faintly. There was an absent sort of quality to her voice, as if she wasn't really there at all, and in a way he supposed she wasn't; her mind was with Charlie, with Amy, just like his own.

"Yeah," he said. And then he dropped his head and let his lips brush against her cheek. He could not kiss her properly, the way he had done as they lay curled up in her bed that morning, blissful and happy with Charlie between them; they were being watched, and both their hearts were shattered. But he needed to show her, needed her to know, just how much he loved her, that he was there for her, now and always.

"You should sit," he added.

"I feel like I've been sitting for hours." She stepped out of his embrace, ran her fingers through her hair, and the loss of her, the vague look in her eyes, troubled him more than he could say. There were not rules for this, for how to behave under these circumstances, what to say, what questions to ask. No one had taught him how to be a father, a supportive almost-husband, and so he supposed he would have to rely on his detective training instead.

"Any leads?" he asked her.

She looked at him sharply, and for a moment he wondered if she was cross with him for asking. If she thought him heartless or cruel for asking such a thing, for falling back on professionalism when their personal life was in tatters. But then she straightened her shoulders, and he saw some of  _Detective Mapplethorpe_ shine through for the first time since this whole sorry business had begun. Perhaps she, like him, found some comfort in procedure.

"None," she said heavily. "They're going through the files now, but I didn't have many leads to give them."

"I gave some names to Janis," Nick told her. "There are a couple of guys who had it out for me. Old cases. Might turn something up."

Jen wrapped her arms around herself, her expression troubled.

"You never told me-"

"You know how it is, Jen."

She sighed, and gave a little nod. "All part of the job."

And it was, of course. He was sure Jen hadn't told him the name of every psycho who'd ever threatened her, every nutter who'd ever followed her home, left notes on her car or on her doorstep. It was just one of those things that happened, if a detective stayed on the job long enough. A case that got under the skin, a killer who took undue interest in the officer chasing him down. Not often, not every time, not even every year, but it happened. Probably more often to a woman like Jen, he thought, a pretty, young woman without a wedding ring. Nick had never asked for names before, because before this moment he hadn't wanted to know. Knowing made him nervous, made him look over his shoulder, and he didn't want to live his life like that.

"There's one," she told him after a pause. "Warwick Endicott. I'd forgotten all about him but it came back to me in the interview. They're looking him up now."

"What'd he do?" Nick asked, desperate for any lead to latch onto.

"Killed his wife and daughter."

"And you caught him?"

Jen nodded. "But he was acquitted. Evidence was too circumstantial, apparently."

"What makes him stand out?"

"He stalked me. Killed my bloody cat. Tried to kill me. That's what he went down for, in the end. We couldn't send him back to trial for what he did to his family, so we put him away for attempted murder."

 _Attempted murder._ It was such a procedural, clinical turn of phrase, but to hear it coming from Jen's mouth, to know that this man, whoever he was, had  _attempted_ to  _murder_ Jen, his beautiful, brilliant Jen, made it shockingly personal. It was not often that he truly considered the risk of their work; the job was the job, and that was that. Just now, though, he couldn't help but wonder why they ever put themselves through such horror. It was the job that had brought them together, but it was the job that had kept them apart for so long, that put them in danger, put a bullet through Jen's arm and one in Amy's belly, stole their child away.  _All part of the bloody job._

Jen looked pale, and wan, weary and worn, and he could not help but step towards her then, setting aside the professional in favor of taking her hand. He held on tight, looking into her eyes, seeing his own desperation reflected back at him. They had a few leads, but they had precious little hope, and the clock was ticking.


	8. Chapter 8

"How can we not have any leads?" Waverly's voice was hard, unforgiving, and Matt couldn't help but feel as if she thought he was personally responsible for the lack of evidence they'd managed to turn up so far. It had been eight hours since the shooting; the team was exhausted and the last time he'd seen her Jen looked dead on her feet, but Missing Persons hadn't cleared Nick and Jen to leave the station yet, and even if they had Matt knew Jen wouldn't get any rest; if anything, she'd likely just go to the hospital, to sit with her sister while they waited for Amy to wake up from surgery.

"We're still going through files, and crime scene's still running fingerprints from the scene," he told her, somewhat defensively. There were so bloody many files, and fingerprint results wouldn't come back instantaneously, no matter how fervently Matt wished they would; he rather feared they were in this for the long haul.

"What about the names Detective Buchanan and Detective Mapplethorpe gave in interview?" Wolfie, at least, didn't seem cross with him, and for that Matt was very thankful.

"We're still looking into it. We pulled Warwick Endicott's file. He was originally supposed to be released this year, but he killed his cellmate and is now serving a life sentence. He hasn't had any contact with the outside world since we put him away, so he doesn't seem likely. Nick gave us three names; one of them is dead, one of them is in prison, and Missing Persons is following up on the third."

"Name's Liam Sellers. He and his wife were put away for murdering his mistress. He got ten years, out in six on good behavior, but the wife died in prison and his son was sent to foster care, and he's blamed Detective Buchanan ever since. My team is at Sellers's home now, should have something to give us in the next hour or so," Mark Howard said, speaking for his team.

Waverly nodded, and turned back to Matt. "Well, have we heard anything from Counterterrorism? Or are they just here to sit around drinking tea while the rest of you do the real work?"

Though he didn't appreciate her tone Matt could understand Waverly's reaction to the two men from Counterterrorism; as far as he'd seen they'd done nothing at all, just stood around the breakroom talking quietly to one another and clamming up the second anyone else walked in the room. They'd provided no information and brought no files with them, and something about the very sight of those two men chilled Matt to the core. There was something off about them, he thought; they weren't doing much liaising, considering they'd spoken to no one, asked no questions and offered no insight. They just... _were,_ standing around, almost as if they were waiting for something. Matt had no idea what that something might be, and the very thought of it was deeply unsettling.

"They're here to relay information, should anything come up that needs to be passed on. It might just be that Counterterrorism has nothing to tell us." Leave it to Wolfie, Matt thought, to be the voice of reason, the calmest person in any room.

"And you've had no luck with CCTV?" Jarvis was a cool customer, too, leaning back against Waverly's desk, casual and collected.

It was somewhat daunting, facing all of them at once, Waverly and Jarvis and Wolfie and Howard. Matt had been back on the team as Sergeant for less than a month, and things weren't going well. People had told him from the beginning that going back to his old squad, having to be their boss and not their friend, would be almost impossible, and much as he was loath to admit it, they were right. The team was used to working together, accustomed to doing things a certain way; they hardly needed his direction, and bristled when he tried to get them to pull their heads in. What no one had told him, however, was how hard it would be to shoulder those new responsibilities under the watchful eyes of his old commanders. He was not one of them, had earned his stripes but not entrance into the upper echelons, and he was no longer a member of the team. He was caught in a strange sort of limbo, and the pain of being torn in too many different directions had grown almost unbearable under the strain of Charlie's disappearance.

"Not yet, sir. We've got teams going over the footage from every camera we can get our hands on, but we haven't been able to get a clear picture of the driver."

"What  _do_ you have then, Ryan?" Waverly demanded.

Matt just stared at her, helpless, hopeless, but he was saved the agony of answering by a knock on the door, and the sudden appearance of Allie Kingston, breathless and waving a file.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but we thought you'd like to see this," she said, marching straight up to Waverly's desk.

"What am I looking at?" Waverly asked, taking the file from Allie and beginning to flip through the pages.

"Andrew Hogan, age thirty-six. One of Jen's old Fraud cases-"

"That's one of the names she gave us in interview," Howard said, and Allie frowned at the interruption.

"Yeah, this one is a bit of a mess. Originally brought down for identity theft. He's a smart one, he'd been operating for years before Jen caught up to him. He had a bit of a thing for her, left her threatening messages, followed her home a few times. While he was in prison his young son drowned in a boating accident, and he blamed Jen. He sent her a few death threats when he got out, and then he went to ground. We've looped in Fraud, they're going to help us track him down."

"It's something," Waverly started to say, but then there came another knock on the door, and it swung open to reveal the officers from Counterterrorism, wearing matching scowls.

"Excuse us," the one on the left said. "We need to speak to Senior Sergeant Wolfe. Alone."

Matt didn't like the sound of that one bit. What could they possibly have to say to Wolfie that couldn't be said in front of the rest of the senior officers? Not for the first time he wished he knew more about what Jen had done for Counterterrorism; she'd been close-lipped about it from the moment her secondment came through, and she had not spoken one single word about it in the year since she'd returned.

"Of course," Wolfe said, and he slipped from the room before any one could protest.

* * *

The door swung open and Jen was on her feet in a moment, though she still held tight to Nick's hand. It was agony, sitting in that room next to Nick with the uniformed officer watching them both like a hawk, no news, no relief, nothing to do but worry. With every minute that passed she knew the danger only grew, the chances of them ever bringing her son home safe to her arms lessening with each breath she took. Her mind shied away from the very idea of it, as if it were a wound she were trying not to touch, but she had been too long a copper, and the fear sat heavy as led in her gut. The only thing that mattered was Charlie, and finding him, and soon, and she was slowly withering beneath the weight of her grief.

It was Wolfie, with the two SIS goons hot on his heels. As soon as he was through the door he dismissed the uniformed officer, and Jen's heart began to race, black spots swimming across her vision. She was hungry, she was exhausted, she was devastated, and she swayed slightly on her feet, but Nick was there, beside her, holding her hand, and she tried to draw some strength from the steady comfort of his presence.

"What is it?" Nick asked tightly, the tension in his voice echoing the fear that swirled through Jen's own heart. The presence of the SIS officers spoke volumes on its own; they would not be here, she thought, if they did not have some information. They would not be here unless something had gone wrong, unless they had some reason to believe that whatever had happened to Charlie was connected to the time she and Nick had spent undercover. And if it were, if this horrible, unthinkable thing had happened because of that operation, Jen knew she'd never be able to live with herself. When she'd accepted the job in the first place she'd been young and untethered, free to do as she wished, itching for some adventure, some excitement, a new experience. But working for SIS hadn't been a lark; she had seen immediately how foolish she had been, thinking it would be a bit of fun. It had been harrowing, terrifying at times, and the only thing that had held her together during those dark days was Nick.

How could it be, she wondered, that one choice could so change the course of her life? The day she'd accepted the secondment she'd set her feet upon a path that had led her directly to this moment, a journey that had given her Nick, and her son, given her the chance to join Homicide, the chance to find Nick again. Her whole life had been shaped by that one decision, and she had not realized the extent of its reach until this very moment. Not until now, standing with Nick's hand wrapped around her own, waiting for news of their child. None of this would have happened if she'd said  _no_  that day, and her mind was spinning as all the many ramifications of that decision struck her square in the chest.

"What don't you have a seat?" Wolfie suggested.

"Please," Jen breathed, hating how ragged her own voice sounded. "Just tell us."

One of the SIS men - Glenn, she thought - stepped forward.

"Mohammad Hartono's gone to ground," he said grimly, "and three of our operatives in the Melbourne shipping industry have gone missing."

 _Is that it?_ Jen wondered. Was it enough of a connection, that Hartono should disappear at the same time as Charlie? The thread seemed too thin, but then Glenn was speaking again.

"And this was delivered to our mobile office this morning."

He held out a file, and Nick took it, his hand leaving Jen's as he began to flip through the photographs within. Jen watched over his shoulder, horror washing over her in waves as the pages turned. The first was a print out of an old newspaper article, a large, glossy photograph of the real Trish and Wesley Claybourne. The next was a photo of Jen, wearing her favorite grey suit, handcuffing a suspect on the bonnet of her car while Nick stood by, smiling. And the last was a photo of Nick and Jen walking up the pavement toward her house, Charlie between them, each of them holding one of his little hands.

"Jesus," Nick swore.

For her part Jen could not speak; she was shaking from head to foot, the taste of bile rising in the back of her throat. For four long years she had wondered if the past would come back to haunt her, if the truth would come out, if she and Nick would face the consequences for the decision they'd made, the recklessness of their youth. And now, she supposed, she had her answer.


	9. Chapter 9

Nick wasn't saying anything.

To be fair, Jen wasn't either. Wolfie and the SIS agents and even the uniformed officer had left them, rushed off to the briefing room to work, to find Charlie, and abandoned Nick and Jen to this heavy, fretful silence. It was a silence Jen couldn't break, a silence she wasn't even sure she wanted to shatter. What could she possibly say? What words were there, in a moment like this? How could anything she said possibly make any of this any better? Jen's stomach was roiling, every inch of her body tight as if she'd been tied in knots from head to toe.

_We did this._

The thought would not leave her, swirled round and round her devastated mind. This thing, this terrible, unthinkable thing, the shooting of her sweet sister, the kidnapping of her son, had only happened because of  _them,_ because of choices they had made, because they had once dared to reach beyond themselves, and strayed into world they could never hope to understand. If Jen hadn't been so eager for action, if she hadn't been so focused on her own ambition, she never would have signed up for the secondment in the first place, and none of this would have happened. That assignment had given her Charlie, but it had taken him from her now, too, and her heart was aching.

 _Could we have been more careful?_ She asked herself. The SIS operatives had explained that they believed the photographs were a warning shot, Hartono's way of saying he knew, now, that SIS was watching him, that he knew who Trish and Wesley - Nick and Jen - really were, and that whatever happened next would be his revenge for that betrayal. Clearly he'd had someone following the pair of them, probably for months now, but neither Nick nor Jen had noticed anything. Desperately she cast through her memories, tried to find some piece of evidence, a car seen too often, a stranger in the street, something,  _anything,_ that would have tipped her off, but she'd been blissfully unaware of any surveillance. Hartono's men had gotten close enough to take those photographs, to find Jen's home, to lie in wait until Amy and Charlie were alone and defenseless, and then they had struck, and ripped her life to pieces, and she had done absolutely nothing to stop it.

_I think I'm going to be sick._

Beside her Nick shifted, sighed and reached for her hand, squeezed her so tight it almost hurt.

"It's going to be all right, Jen," he said. His heart wasn't in it; he wanted to comfort her, she knew, but his tone was heavy, as drenched in sorrow as her own thoughts, and she could not stop the angry words from spilling out of her then.

"No it won't," she hissed, jerking her hand back and staring at him, the lines on his face, the despair in his eyes. It was half past one in the morning, and Jen couldn't recall when last she'd eaten, when last she'd been anywhere that wasn't that awful room. The peace, the happiness she and Nick had shared the night before, shared just that morning was all but forgotten, now; she felt as if she'd been scared and shaking for an eternity.

"We did this, Nick," she told him. His eyes went wide, his mouth opening to protest, but she barreled on, heedless. "They took him because of what we did. Bloody SIS! What were we thinking, Nick? How could we not have known? They've been watching us for months and we were too caught up in...whatever this is," she gestured vaguely between them, "to notice. We never should have-"

"No." The word was firm, and the heat in his voice left her paralyzed mid sentence. "Don't say that. Don't even  _think_ it, Jen. That job brought us together. It gave me you. It gave us Charlie. And I wouldn't trade our family for anything. We are going to find him, Jen. We are going to bring him home and we are going to get married and I am going to love you every day and we are going to be all right."

He reached for her, warm palms against her cheeks, his thumbs brushing away the tears that spilled from her eyes unbidden. Desperately she reached for him, wrapped her hands around his wrists and clung to him. She wanted, so very badly, to believe him. And when he spoke to her like that, when his voice reached deep into her very heart and shook her from the inside out, when all she could see, all she could feel was Nick, she felt she had no choice but to trust him.

"I've got you, Jen," he whispered, and her tears began to fall in earnest, then. She collapsed against his chest and he held her tight, let her weep, let her tremble, let her spill her grief out while he held her, strong and steady.  _I've got you;_ she could not help but recall the first time he'd spoken those words to her, every time since, found herself awash in memories. They had come through hell together, intrigue and violence, bullets and blood, had waded through death and worse, faced misery and loss, and always,  _always_ , he had been there for her, had helped to right her when she stumbled, stood shoulder-to-shoulder her with her no matter what obstacle they encountered, and they had overcome it all, together. And he was here now, and she was so bloody grateful for him she could not find the words.

It didn't take long, for the storm of her tears to pass. Nick lifted her face and his eyes searched hers for a moment, seeking some reassurance, and she tried to offer him a watery smile. He did not return it, but he did lean in and let his lips brush against her cheek.

"I feel so helpless," she confessed in a small voice. "We have to find him, but we aren't doing him any good here."

"No," Nick agreed, "we aren't."

Without a word he rose to his feet, unfolding himself to his full height, towering over her proud and strong and suddenly full of purpose, and then he held out his hand to her.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, hesitating, unsure. Wolfie had told them in no uncertain terms to stay put; they weren't going to be allowed anywhere near the investigation. Nick knew the rules as well as did she but maybe, she realized, maybe he just didn't care. Maybe the rules were pointless, in a moment like this. Maybe they always had been.

"We're going to find our son," he said. And he said it with such conviction, such certainty, that she could not help but take his hand, and let him lead her from the room.

* * *

They were gathered together in the the briefing room, homicide and Missing Persons, Waverly and Jarvis and Wolfie and Howard and the two guys from Counterterrorism, standing with a new man who had not yet been introduced to the group. Matt was sitting between Allie and Duncan, waiting for the meeting to begin with nothing to say, nothing to do but stare at the whiteboard, at the crossed out names of eliminated suspects and the photo of Charlie's little face. He'd grown since the last time Matt had seen him; somehow in Matt's mind Charlie was perpetually a baby, and he was always surprised to find how much the boy had changed between their infrequent meetings. He studied that face, and couldn't help but kick himself;  _Christ,_ but the kid looked just like Nick. He had his father's eyes, and his hair, and the shape of the chin was the same. Somehow that was the most troubling thing about it, he thought, that irrefutable connection between the pair of them, that proof that Jen had done this thing, carried on this relationship with Nick in secret and never trusted Matt enough to tell him the truth.

"Right," Waverly said as the last of the team settled into a chair, "everybody, this is Jeremy Byrnes of SIS," she gestured towards the man Matt had not seen before.

 _SIS?_ he wondered, thunderstruck at the very idea.  _SIS? The bloody intelligence service?_

Apparently he wasn't the only person reeling at that announcement. A whisper seemed to travel the length of the room, everyone shifting, on edge suddenly, even Howard. They were state police, and Matt could not recall having ever,  _ever_ , crossed passed with SIS before. It just didn't happen; run of the mill murders and assaults and drug busts were so far below the SIS pay grade, and the work those men did was the stuff of films and cheesy paperback novels, not real life. Only they were standing here now, three of them, quiet and watchful.

 _What the hell do the spooks have to do with anything?_ Matt asked himself, but then it all clicked into place; the undercover operation that had brought Nick and Jen together and yet did not exist in their personnel files, the tight-lipped boys from Counterterrorism, the questions gone unanswered. They'd been working for bloody SIS; Matt could hardly wrap his mind around it, but Waverly wasn't giving them time to digest the news.

"From here on in, we're gonna be running a joint operation. I'm sure I don't need to spell this out, but for those of you who may be slow on the uptake, understand this - everything said here is and will remain classified. Mr. Byrnes?"

The man stepped forward and smoothly took over the briefing. "Four years ago, Detectives Mapplethorpe and Buchanan went undercover for SIS. Their cover-" he slapped a photo on the board, a glossy newspaper printout - "Trish and Wesley Claybourne, of Claybourne shipping. They were assisting this man -" another photo, this time a grainy shot of a grim, tight-lipped man - "Muhammad Hartono, in running guns and worse through Melbourne. They posed as a married couple for a year, passing on information to SIS. In the end we were able to make a number of arrests, but Hartono got away from us."

Matt's mind was racing; so  _that's_  how they'd met, how they'd fallen into bed together so many years before. A whole year they'd spent pretending to be married, living cheek by jowl with one another. It made sense; Matt knew in Nick's shoes he would never have been able to keep a professional distance from Jen, living in such close quarters for so long, but he was still a little shocked at the thought that she'd given in, as well. Jen had never really prioritized personal relationships, had always seemed perfectly happy to be on her own, but maybe, he realized, that was because she'd already met Nick. Maybe all this time she'd just been waiting. For him.

"We believed their cover to be intact until these photographs were delivered to SIS headquarters earlier today."

Two more pictures on the board; one of Jen arresting a suspect while Nick watched, one of Nick and Jen walking up the pavement toward her house, with little Charlie in between.  _Christ,_ but that photo was like a punch to the gut. They looked so comfortable, so happy, so sweet, so  _right_  together; they were, he realized, a proper family. A family that had been torn apart, now. A family he had to save.

"It's clear Hartono knows that he's been under surveillance, and that Detectives Mapplethorpe and Buchanan have had their cover blown. We believe Hartono has taken the boy. We also believe that these photographs were meant to taunt us. If all he wanted was to kill the boy he would have done it already, and he would have been sure we knew about it. He wants to draw us out, Mapplethorpe and Buchanan included."

There came a murmur from the back of the room then and Byrnes frowned, clearly displeased at the interruption; Matt turned quickly, and felt his heart sink as Nick and Jen came walking in the room, hand-in-hand, their shoulders set and their faces grim.

"Sorry we're late," Nick said. There was no trace of humor in him, but there was no sign of doubt, either. Matt couldn't blame him for disobeying orders, for refusing to stay away. When it had been his mother's face on that board he had been unable to sit back and let others do the work while he remained in the dark; he had never had a child, of course, but he had some idea what they must have been feeling in that moment.

"Detectives-" Waverly started to say, probably intending to tell them to leave, that they couldn't be involved in the operation, but Nick cut her off.

"You need our input," he said firmly. "We know this operation, we know Hartono, and we know what he wants. You need us on this."

"Please," Jen added, stepping forward, her eyes beseeching. Waverly stared at her for a moment, and Matt could feel the tension in the room skyrocketing. Missing Persons might not have known what had befallen Waverly's son, but every member of the Homicide team knew, and they knew what Jen was asking, now, who she was asking it of, what it all meant, how much hung in the balance.

"They're right," Byrnes said. That was surprising; Matt would have thought SIS wouldn't want any more hands in the pot. "They can help us on this."

"All right," Waverly gave in, and that was surprising, too. "All right."

One of the uniformed officers had brought in two more chairs from somewhere and Nick and Jen settled into them at once, still holding hands, their eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Right," Byrnes said. "Here's what we're going to do."


	10. Chapter 10

"What about the warehouse on Lorimer Street?" Jen asked.

Nick frowned, staring down at the map of the city they'd spread across the table in the briefing room. Byrnes had taken charge of the map, had with Matt and Dunny's help placed little pins on each location they'd already searched, every place Hartono might have been but wasn't. His eyes followed Jen's finger across the page, following the curve of the street, following the curve of the Yara. There was no pin there, where her fingertip came to rest.

"What warehouse?" Byrnes asked, turning through the pages of field notes he held, his brow furrowed.

"I've got the list of properties owned by Hartono and his subsidiary companies and there's nothing on that side of the city," Matt volunteered.

"No, she's right," Nick told them both. "When we were running the operation, Hartono had a warehouse down there, I think near the intersection with Salmon Street? Right next to some big trucking outfit?" He looked to Jen for confirmation, and she nodded. The details kept coming back to him, piece by piece, his own past feeling more like a faded dream than a reality he had lived.

"Maybe he sold it," Matt suggested.

 _Like hell,_ Nick thought. The place had been just up Hartono's alley; right on the river, close to the port, sandwiched between a dozen other nondescript buildings, headquarters for businesses where the employees were more likely to be wearing workboots and ballcaps than three piece suits, where everyone looked to their own affairs and did not quite meet the eyes of those they passed by. The street looked seedy but every business had a reputable charter, and the police didn't venture down there, much.  _Hide in plain sight,_ that was Hartono's way. That warehouse had been useful to him, as a holding bay for hot merchandise or a hideout if one was needed. But Nick couldn't remember, now, whose name the building had been in, how Hartono had come across it in the first place.

"Matt, you've still got a contact at the Land Titles office?" Jen asked him sharply.

"Yeah, you got an address for me?"

Jen scribbled it down - she had always been better than Nick at the detail stuff, anyway - and handed it off to Matt, who jogged off to his desk, and his phone.

It was a thin piece of hope, but it was the first real sign of progress they'd made in the last three hours since SIS had come on board. There were teams of officers scouring the city, all the places Hartono might have gone, searching out all the people he might have known, and more officers were encamped on the homicide floor making calls, digging through phone records and bank statements, desperately searching for something, anything that might help. A whole army of SIS agents had descended upon them, bearing laptops and box after box of paper files, and none of it -  _none of it -_  had brought them any closer to Charlie.

Except now, looking at this map, something had twigged in Jen's mind, and Nick was so bloody grateful for it he could have kissed her. Leave it to Jen, he thought, to be the one to make the connection no one else had seen.

"Detective Ryan is right," Byrnes said grimly. "It's possible the warehouse isn't connected to Hartono at all, any more."

"Maybe it is," Nick answered. "It's the one place we haven't checked. We have to give it a try."

"There's nothing in the field notes from our current operation that suggests he's got a building down there. We've had three guys undercover at the docks keeping tabs on his activities for the last six months since he came back to Australia, and no one has heard anything about it."

"Maybe he got smarter."

It didn't seem possible, somehow, that they should find themselves once more on the trail of Muhammad Hartono. Four years before Nick and Jen had blown a hole through his operation, sent more than twenty of his people to prison and sent Hartono himself fleeing out of the country. And at the time, they'd both thought that was the end of it. He couldn't operate anywhere in Australia without bringing the wrath of SIS down on him, his operation crippled and defanged. He would have had to have been mad, to try to set up shop in some other port, under some other name; he had to have known that the government was on to him, and that was enough to satisfy Nick, to convince him he'd done his part and would not have to worry about his brief foray into intelligence work ever again. And yet, fate had sent Nick stumbling right back into Jen's path, and a few short months later Hartono was back in Australia, and a few short months after that, he'd taken their son. It was all connected, in some vast, cosmic way that Nick didn't really want to ponder; every step he'd taken had somehow led him here. Nick Buchanan had never been a particularly spiritual man, but seeing it all lined up like this...it was almost enough to make a man want to go to church. Almost.

"All right, I've got it," Matt came rushing back into the room, and Jen tensed, pale-faced and weary but focused, completely, on the task at hand. She had thrown herself into the work, and Nick had done the same; they could not stop, could not rest, could not contemplate their circumstances, could not afford the break in their momentum. They  _had_  to find Charlie; nothing else mattered.

"The building was purchased six years ago by a company called Sunrise Imports. Address is a PO box in St Kilda."

"That's it," Jen said. "Sunrise Imports was one of the shell companies Hartono used four years ago. I remember seeing the logo on the boxes."

 _That_  Nick did remember, the distinctive, heavy black lines showing a sun peaking over a horizon. They'd been emblazoned on more heavy wooden crates than he could have counted, crates full of all sorts of nasty things.

"That's not on the list of his current holdings-"

"He never sold the building!" Jen interrupted Byrnes impatiently. "The company might not be operational but he didn't sell the building. We have to check, we need to put a team on this now."

There came the shuffle of footsteps behind them; it was Wolfie, no doubt drawn to them by the shrill sound of Jen's voice. Byrnes frowned even more deeply, if such a thing were possible, but he filled Wolfie in nonetheless. Maybe it seemed unlikely to him, with his years of SIS training, that something this big could have slipped through the cracks, but Nick knew they had to follow it up. Maybe Hartono had never used the company again, maybe there had been no more crates with the sunrise logo flowing through the docks, maybe no one else remembered, but Jen did, and he did, and he felt a certainty in that moment, staring at the map, letting the voices of the others wash over him. He felt almost calm, strangely; it was as if he could see the whole plan unfolding, right before his very eyes. Jen had stuck a pin on the map to mark the warehouse and his eyes locked on it at once;  _he's there,_ Nick thought.  _My son is there._

"Detective Mapplethorpe is right," Wolfie said. "Sergeant Ryan, bring your team back here now. Mr. Byrnes, get your people here. I'll put in a call to Commander Waverly. Briefing in half an hour."

* * *

"Right, here's the plan," Byrnes said.

Thirty minutes had flown by, as the various senior officers gathered every available body they could spare. There were still a few officers manning desks and more than a few in the field, but getting anywhere near that warehouse would require a concerted effort, and more than a few people.

"We're going to investigate this warehouse." Byrnes slapped a grainy satellite photo onto the white board. "As you can see, we're at a disadvantage. It's on the corner of a busy intersection, and it's one of the tallest buildings in the vicinity. There are too many windows, and that flat roof provides a good vantage point for snipers. We don't know if we'll find Hartono there, and if we do we have no way to know how many people he's got with him. So we're going to go at this smart, smart as we can. SIS is already sending people one at a time to surrounding buildings to try to get a sense of the presence there. Once they're in place, we go in. Four teams, converging from four directions. There is a possibility of explosives, so we've got bomb squad with us as well."

An eerie silence seemed to descend in the wake of those words. It would be the perfect trap, Nick knew.  _That_ was why Byrnes remained so hesitant. Hartono was out for revenge, and there would be no better way to get it than to lure SIS - and Nick and Jen, and Homicide, and Missing Persons, all of them - to the warehouse, get them inside, and then blow the whole thing sky-high.

"The SIS teams in the area have some explosive detection devices, and they will check the building before we approach. This is not a perfect system. I want that understood."

A few people nodded; most, like Nick, seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for more direction.

"Advance teams will go in first. They will secure entrances and checks for indications that the building has been rigged. Once they've cleared the entrances, secondary teams will approach and sweep the warehouse. Everyone will be equipped with vests and earpieces. Commander Waverly, the team assignments if you please."

Waverly stepped up then, and began rattling off names. As each was called Nick's heart sank a little further in his chest; the sheer scale of the operation was daunting, and the number of things that could go wrong set his mind spinning. They simply didn't have enough information, but dawn wasn't far off, and with every second that past he knew the danger only grew for Charlie. And every person in that room knew, as their name was called, that they might well be about to embark upon their final operation.

It wasn't just for Charlie, Nick tried to remind himself. These people weren't laying their lives on the line just for his son; Hartono was a bad character, and he had to be stopped. Three SIS agents had already disappeared, likely never to be seen again, and whatever had befallen them was just another tick against the man, another crime to hold him to account for. Knowing that didn't make it less personal to Nick, though; to him, and to Jen, this had only ever -  _could_ only ever - be about finding their son.

"Right you lot. Kick off in thirty minutes. You know what you're doing. Let's go." Waverly clapped her hands, and the bodies slowly filtered from the room, and it was only then that Nick realized his name hadn't been called.

Jen had noticed it, too; she was on her feet in an instant, making a beeline for Waverly, and Nick rose to follow after her.

"Ma'am?" Jen said.

Waverly took one look at her and then heaved a great sigh.

"You cannot be allowed on this operation, Detective." Her words were firm, and brooked no argument, but an expression of outrage overcame Jen's face. Nick couldn't blame her for it; he felt much the same way himself.

"Your information has been vital, but even you have to admit that you would be a liability in the field on this one. We cannot-"

"How about a compromise?" Nick interrupted her. He had to say something; Waverly would have her heels dug in, he knew, but Jen would never stand for it, and he wasn't too keen on hanging back himself. It would be the worst sort of torture, sitting alone in the station, waiting for news, unable to help, unable to be there for their son when he needed them most. Maybe Waverly thought their presence would only end in disaster, and maybe she was right, but there was no way in hell he was going to sit this one out.

"We don't go in. Let us be on site, ma'am. We can help run the operation from a distance. You'll need someone to run the coms and keep the teams on track, and if our son is in that building…" he left it hanging; he didn't feel as if he needed to finish that sentence.

Waverly had stood in their shoes, once. Had been faced with a choice, told to hold back, insisted on her right to be involved, her need to go to her child. Fate had not been on her side that day and she had been met with a horror the likes of which Nick couldn't even contemplate, but surely, he thought, she could understand. Would things have been easier for her, he wondered, if she hadn't been on the scene that day, if she'd heard the news second-hand? Or would she have been guilt-ridden for the rest of her life, certain that if only she'd been there she would have been able to stop it? Maybe, he thought, she blamed herself anyway. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, one way or the other. He wasn't about to ask.

"Please, ma'am," Jen was almost begging, her voice ragged, her eyes shining with desperation. "We need to be there. Please."

Waverly crossed her arms over her chest, her expression unreadable. Whatever she was feeling, whatever she was remembering, however much this might hurt her, she seemed determined to keep it to herself. Not that Nick could blame her.

"All right," she said after a long moment, and Jen's shoulders sagged in relief. "You stay well back, and you assist Sergeant Ryan with team deployment. So help me god if either of you steps one foot off the pavement I'll have both your badges."

"Yes, ma'am," they answered her together.


	11. Chapter 11

Dawn was breaking. Somewhere, off in the distance, the sun had begun to rise, painting the world in shades of orange and gold, fog rising off the river while the grey shadows of the night slowly faded away. A sense of purpose hung in the air, a sense of  _almost,_ a sense that something was coming, some great and terrible new something, and nothing they could do but wait for it.

Nick Buchanan had always been a patient man, but even he was restless, tense, pacing by the squad car two streets back from the warehouse. It was as close as Waverly would allow he and Jen to the action; she had only allowed their presence under protest, and he knew he ought to be grateful for having been given this much leniency in the first place, but there was every possibility that Charlie was in that warehouse, alone and in danger, and the fact that he and Jen were stuck here manning the comms rankled.

The sheer scope of the operation was impressive. SIS snipers were positioned on the roofs of four of the surrounding buildings, and teams of SIS and various police personnel had fanned out, surrounded the warehouse though they remained just out of sight of the windows. There was no way to know what might happen, once the men inside caught sight of the police. If indeed there was anyone inside at all.

SIS had that covered, Byrnes had told them. In addition to the equipment that would help them detect and identify the presence of a bomb they had brought infrared cameras, were currently scanning the building to see if there was any sign of life inside. Nick supposed that's what they were doing, just now, putting their advanced technology to work; gathering intelligence was their remit, after all. And while SIS worked their magic they had bomb squad and emergency response and a veritable army of officers in bulletproof vests with guns at the ready, all poised and waiting for the signal. There was a chance, Nick knew, that the building was empty, that they were wasting precious time and resources on this side adventure, but something in his gut told him that they were on the right path. Hartono wanted them to know he'd taken Charlie; he wanted to be found. This was all a big game to him, each and every one of them pieces on a board, moving according to his rules. Nick knew the man, remembered him well from their previous acquaintance, and he couldn't see Hartono just killing Charlie and dumping him somewhere. Violence and vengeance were the man's bread and butter, but he didn't just go around killing children. Despite his flaws Hartono had his own code of honor; he would not make Charlie suffer for the sins of his parents. No, it was Nick and Jen Hartono would want to suffer. What better way to do that, then, than to construct this trap, place Charlie just within their reach and watch them claw themselves to pieces trying to save him?

Yes, Nick was sure Charlie was in that building, and he was doubly sure that Hartono would be in the area as well. He would be somewhere he thought was safe, somewhere secure, but he would be watching. He'd gone to so much trouble setting all this up; he would want to enjoy the payoff.

"Anything?" Matt asked anxiously.

Matt had always hated the quiet. He was a talker, Matt Ryan. If there was a silence, a break in conversation, he would fill it, particularly when he was antsy, and none of them had ever been more restless than they were just now. It was probably terribly uncomfortable for him, Nick knew, stuck behind this car with Nick and Jen, their faces drawn and pale, their spirits bound so intimately, with no energy left for comforting Matt. Let him chatter, Nick thought; Nick himself never minded the silence, but he couldn't blame Matt for being worried, just now.

"It's taking too long," Jen said. Her hands were wrapped so tightly around her gun that her knuckles had gone white.

"We've only been here fifteen minutes. Let's give them time to work." Nick tried to make the words sound soothing, rather than admonishing. His own nerves were fraying by the second, but patience was called for now. Patience, and a clear head. It would not do to simply charge in, guns blazing; the risk of carnage was too great. If Charlie was in that building, if there were explosives, if some plod tripped a switch on his way through the door... _no,_  he thought.  _Best sit tight, and let the spooks do their work._

"Red Leader this is Gold Leader, do you copy?" a voice crackled over the wireless. As one Nick, Jen, and Matt each drew in a deep breath and held it, waiting to hear what SIS had found. Gold Leader was Byrnes, tucked away in the building to the left of the warehouse with most of the tech. Red Leader was Waverly, positioned by her own car closer to the river.

"Go ahead Gold Leader," she answered tersely.

"Infrared confirms, at least ten people in the building. We have reason to believe there are explosives by the main entrance."

The breath he'd been holding slipped past Nick's lips in silence. Ten people, and a bomb. It was the worst possible news, he thought. They had no way to know what sort of mechanism the bomb used, if it would be triggered the moment the door opened, if it was on a timer, if it could be detonated remotely. Without that knowledge they were well and truly stuck; they couldn't risk storming the place, and even if they sent the bomb squad in the men were just as likely to die as they were to deactivate the bomb. It was a terrible risk, and not one he was certain Waverly was prepared to take.

"What about the other entrances?"

Nick and Jen had helped Byrnes put together a rough schematic of the warehouse from their memories, other doors and low profile windows that could be used to infiltrate the building apart from the main entrance. There was a loading bay and two side exits, and if they moved quickly enough the windows would serve, but if there was more than one bomb, if there was someone standing by with their finger on a trigger…

"There are a few people around the other doors but no signs of explosives there."

There came a long, desperate pause following those words. Waverly was weighing her options, Nick knew. It was an impossible decision, the choice between the lives of dozens of people and one boy, one boy who might die anyway if they stormed that building. The fact that it was Bernice Waverley making this decision was not lost on Nick;  _Christ,_ but she must have been in agony.

"I can't order anyone to go in under these circumstances," she said heavily, and Nick knew then that she was addressing all of them, not just Byrnes. "It's too unpredictable. But there is every possibility that Muhammad Hartono is nearby, or that one of the people inside that building can tell us how to find him. This is an opportunity not just to save this child but to bring down a gunrunner and a thug who's been responsible for attacks against civilians throughout Asia and Australia. If anyone does not wish to move forward speak to your team leader now and hand over your weapon. You have five minutes to decide."

No one would, Nick knew. No one, having made it this far, having heard that speech, would choose to put their own lives first. It wasn't what they did. SIS or police it made no difference; every single person involved in this operation had chosen this life for themselves, had chosen to value the safety of others above their own. Waverly had given them an out to assuage her own conscience more than anything, but Nick knew they wouldn't lose a single one of their number.

Those five minutes were torture, though. Five minutes of silence as the world around them grew ever brighter, as Jen sagged against him, her head on his shoulder. He reached out to her; both her hands were wrapped around her gun, and so he only covered them with one of his own, skin-on-skin, warm and trembling, the only way he had to show her that he was here, with her, from this moment until the last moment, whatever happened next.

"All right," Waverly's voice came back, grim and determined. "Advance teams, we're using secondary entrances. I want bomb squad on the primary entrance. We move as one. Two minutes, and then sound off when you're in position. I want West Team to ring in first."

Jen shifted restlessly beside him, from one foot to the other and back again.

"It's going to be a bloodbath," she said.

"Maybe not." Nick didn't believe it himself, not really, but he felt he had to say it, for her sake. "There's only ten of them, and SIS knows where they are. They can help the advance teams-"

"I don't like this business with the bomb," Matt muttered.

"Do you really think there would be so many people in there if Hartono intended to blow up the building?" Jen's voice was scathing, and Matt paled at her tone. "One or two of his men might be an acceptable loss but ten? No one would ever work for him again. He's not going to blow that warehouse, not while his people are inside."

"Then why put the bomb in there at all?"

"There's gotta be a signal," Nick realized, horror slowly dawning. "Hartono is here, somewhere, he's gotta be. He'll tell his people to run and blow it while we're all inside."

As he spoke Jen caught his gaze, and he saw the agreement in her shining eyes. That was it, it  _had_ to be; Hartono wouldn't risk losing so many of his men, but the bomb served no purpose unless he intended to detonate it.

"Gold Leader this is Alpha One, do you copy?" Nick barked into the little microphone he'd been given.

"Go ahead Alpha One."

Quickly Nick filled Byrnes in on their theory, and just like that, the plan began to change.

"All right, new plan," Byrnes barked. "Secondary teams, fan out now. Surrounding buildings, cars, hell if there's boats on the river, you search them. Gold teams, confirm your buildings are secure. Advance Teams, hold, two more minutes."

"It's taking too long," Jen hissed. "The sun is up, we're losing the advantage. If someone in that warehouse sees them moving into the other buildings-"

"They've got to find Hartono, Jen. If there's a detonator, he's got to be close. And you and I both know he'll want to flip that switch himself. You've got to give them time-"

"There's no bloody time!"

Jennifer was not prone to hysterics. She kept a level head, and even when tensions were high there was always a method to her approach. Even now, in this moment when they were both so consumed with terror, with doubt, with grief, she had not lost her head. She was weighing the options, trying to find the best way forward. As he looked at her he almost saw it happen, the moment when everything clicked into place, when she decided on a course of action. They were at a diagonal from the warehouse; if one were to move along the gravel of the carparks and the small sad patches of grass between the buildings rather than along the pavement, a fast runner could cover the distance in under three minutes. And Jen had always been quick, quicker than him. She knew the layout of the building, knew that one person could move more stealthily and with greater success than an army. She knew now where the people pacing inside the building were, thanks to the steady stream of reports from SIS coming in over the comms. She knew there might be snipers, but she also knew a single running target, moving fast in an unpredictable line with buildings and cars for cover, would be almost impossible to hit. And she knew, just as Nick did, that her son was in that warehouse, alone, scared, and in desperate need of his mummy.

"Jen," Nick started to say.

"I love you," she answered, and then she took off like a shot, blonde ponytail bouncing, gun at the ready, the word  _police_  stark and white on the back of the black vest she wore.

"Shit," Nick and Matt said together. Matt was on the comms at once, reporting what Jen had done, a cacophony of noise erupting in response, but Nick paid them no mind, for no sooner had the curse left his lips than he was running, too.

He'd been waiting for Jennifer Mapplethorpe for years now, and he wasn't about to let her leave him behind.


	12. Chapter 12

The sharp slap of her shoes on the pavement echoed like a drum, over and over, the only thing she could hear above the roar of her blood in her veins. She knew it might possibly be the stupidest decision she'd ever made in her life, to take off running without backup, without a plan, to leave Nick behind her, but in the moment there had been no other choice. Hartono had shot her sister, taken her son, put her through hell, and she could not spend another second idle and helpless when she had the means to save Charlie with her own hands. Maybe it was madness, the certainty that had descended upon her, the sudden fury of her movements, but it was the madness of a mother hellbent on reaching her child, and in that madness she had found her own sort of power.

No one was shooting at her; at least, not yet. The warehouse loomed up ahead, and she knew that it was possible Hartono had put snipers on the surrounding buildings but if he had they were not firing at her. Maybe they had orders to let her get inside first; maybe that was the plan all along, to wait until Nick and Jen were both in the building and then blow it. There was simply no way to predict which of a hundred different outcomes might be the right one, and they would each of them have to make a choice based on the information available to them. Jen knew what Waverly and Byrnes had chosen, but she could not abide by it, could not hold off another second. Maybe they'd hold Nick back, she tried to tell herself, maybe that would be enough to buy them some time while Hartono waited for an opportunity to take them both out at once.

As she drew level with the building, running hard and fast for one of the rear exits, she heard a cacophony of voices; distressed and overcome she ripped the comm out of her ear and slammed it into her pocket while she ran. That didn't stop the voices, though; they were all around her. The scene came into focus then, as she drew ever nearer to the door. Nick was tearing after her, and though a part of her was worried that having him with her might put them all in danger a much larger piece of her heart was grateful, to think that he would be with her, that whatever hell waited in that place she would not have to face it alone. Always he had been there, by her side, and if this was to be her end then she supposed it was right that he should face it with her.

What surprised her more than that, however, was that Allie had come racing in, moving so fast it seemed to Jen she had not so much run as materialized out of thin air. Allie had been a track star once, Jen knew, and that seemed to have served her in good stead, for the boys were well behind them, Rhys and Dunny and Nick. They were coming up fast, but not fast enough; Allie and Jen would take that door together.

"We doing this?" Allie asked as she came loping up. Jen had slowed, ever so slightly; there was every chance that door was locked, and they'd be sitting ducks while they tried to open it. She and Allie both had their guns drawn, and though they were not running full out any more they were still moving at a steady pace, bearing down on the door.  _Now or never,_ she told herself.

"Yes," she said aloud. "Watch yourself."

And before Allie could ask what she meant Jen aimed her gun at the handle of the door, and fired three quick shots. To her credit, Allie didn't even flinch. The door, however, was far less stoic; Jen had blown the handle clean off, and part of the door with it, and it swung open, limp and ominous in the early morning sunlight.

"Here we go," Allie said softly.

While the pair of them had slowed the boys had not, and so it was that as they reached the door Jen found herself surrounded by people who loved her. The door was not wide enough for two to pass through together and they filed into a line of sorts, the five of them, Jen in the front with Nick just behind her, and as she stepped through that door she felt the warmth of his hand against the small of her back just beneath her heavy vest. He did not speak, but she heard him just the same;  _I've got you,_ that touch seemed to say, and Jen gave thanks for it, for in this moment there was no one she wanted with her more than Nick.

* * *

"Have they all lost their bloody minds?" Waverly bellowed through the comms, and her voice was so loud that Matt couldn't help but flinch at the sound of it.

"They couldn't let Jen go in alone," he answered. It was, he realized, the first time since his promotion to sergeant that he had ever bucked against Waverly's authority. With good reason, for his own conscience was shredding itself to pieces. His team had done the right thing; of course Nick couldn't let Jen go alone, Nick who loved her, Nick who was Charlie's father. And of course Dunny and Allie and Rhys wouldn't leave the pair of them; they were a  _team_ , a family after a fashion, and what one of them did, they all did, together. He should have been there, he should have gone with them -

"Advances teams get into that building now!" That was Byrnes, his tone exasperated but not as outraged as Waverly's had been. The SIS teams were still checking in over the comms; their search of the surrounding buildings hadn't turned up anyone else, and it appeared that the men in the warehouse were holding steady on one of the upper floors, waiting, no doubt, for Nick and Jen and the rest to reach them.

At Byrnes's command a flood of people came pouring out of the street towards the warehouse, moving fast and purposeful. Somewhere in the distance a siren howled; someone had had the presence of mind to ring in the ambos.

 _But what about the bomb?_ Matt asked himself anxiously, radio clutched in his hands. They still hadn't found Hartono, they still didn't know-

A crackle of gunfire echoed over the comms. Someone, somewhere, was engaging with the enemy.

Was it Jen, who had been first through the door to save her son? Was it Nick, just behind her, doing his damnedest to protect her? Or was it someone else; had SIS found the place where Hartono was holed up, waiting to strike?

A few more shots rang out, and then there came an unbearable silence. It lasted no more than a few seconds, but it chilled Matt to the core; everyone he loved in the world was in that building, and he was alone, outside, deaf and blind to the horrors they faced, waiting.

"Gold Leader this is Gold Two. We have Hartono. There is a remote detonator, but it's secure."

"Yes!" Matt couldn't help but shout, punching the air as the tension left him in a wave. That was one less thing to worry about -

"Bomb squad, move in now. Anyone not already in the warehouse get to the main entrance and give them some cover," Byrnes ordered sharply.

 _This is good, this is good, things are moving,_ Matt thought. If the bomb was no longer a threat-

"Oh, fuck this," he swore. He tossed the radio in the backseat of the squad car and took off for the warehouse. The bomb had been neutralized, or would be soon, and no matter what his orders were he knew he'd never be able to live with himself if he didn't go to help his friends now, when they needed it most.

There came another crackle of gunfire over the earpiece he wore, and then he heard Allie's voice, sharp and shrill.

"Red Leader this is Red Two. We've got eyes on the unfriendlies. Two down. Alpha Two's been hit but she's still moving. We think we've located the package. Requesting backup, third floor, southwest corner."

"You heard her!" Waverly shouted. "Everybody in the building, get over there now!"

 _Third floor, southwest corner,_ Matt told himself as he ran.  _Third floor, southwest corner. Don't think about Jen._

It would break him in half, he thought, if let his mind go there. Jen was  _Alpha Two,_  and she'd been shot, and the very idea of it was so brutal that his mind shied away, desperate to protect him from the wave of grief that threatened to drown him. Jen had been shot, but Charlie was  _the package,_ and Allie had said Jen was still moving, and if they'd found Charlie-

_Third floor, southwest corner-_

Two people came hurtling out of the door, and Matt raised his gun on instinct, but he needn't have worried. It was two of the uniformed officers who'd joined the advance teams, one of them clearly wounded and only barely clinging to consciousness.

"Help me!" the uninjured one cried, catching sight of Matt, and there was nothing else for it then, he knew, but to do as he'd been asked.

As quickly as he could he ran over, and looped one of the injured man's arms around his shoulders. The pale faced man who'd carried his friend out slipped under the other side, and together they helped to haul him right up against the side of the building. Altogether they slid to the ground, Matt and the other man kneeling, checking their compatriot for the source of the bleeding. It was a wound to his upper thigh; Matt didn't know much about first aid, but he knew enough to see that this was bad. He called it in over the comms, and was immediately assured that ambos were on their way to him. It would not take long for help to reach them but every second counted in a situation like this, and so Matt pressed his hands hard to the wound to try to stop the bleeding. The uninjured officer looked like he was about to sick;  _Christ,_ Matt thought,  _he's just a kid._

"What did you see in there?" he demanded, trying to keep the young man focused, hoping that having a reason to talk might steady him.

"They're all holed up in a room up there on the top. The doorway's narrow, and they've got it covered, so we can't just run in. The kid's in there, too, his mum was screaming bloody murder. They're scared to fire into the room in case they hit the kid."

A shiver coursed down Matt's spine, the image seeming to come to life before his very eyes. Jen, bleeding, screaming, and no way to reach her son except through a hail of bullets.  _His mum was screaming bloody murder..._

"What about the bomb? Is it gonna blow? Should we get out of here?" The kid's eyes were growing wilder by the second.

"Nah, it'll be all right now," Matt said, trying to sound authorative when the truth was he had no bloody idea whether the building might go up at any second. "Bomb squad's on it."

The ambulance came wailing up then, three men spilling out of the back of it almost before it came to a stop, and Matt breathed a sigh of relief. That would be one less thing to worry about. At almost the same moment the ambos reached him Allie's voice came crackling over the comms again.

"Red Leader this is Red Two. Package secure. We've got a few unfriendlies to deal with and we're trying to secure the building but Alpha team is bringing him out now."

In that moment, Matt was certain he'd never felt more relieved in his entire life; it washed over him in a wave so strong and fierce he nearly threw up right there on the grass beside the warehouse, might have done if he'd had anything for breakfast. The ambos took over with the injured officer and Matt stumbled to his feet, heading towards the door. Before he reached it, however, it swung wide, and Nick and Jen stepped into view.

They looked like they'd been through hell; they were both sweaty, guns still in their right hands, their faces drawn and unsmiling. A bullet had grazed Nick's bicep, torn his shirt and left him bleeding, but based on the grip he kept on his gun Matt supposed it must have only nicked him, and not gone through. Nick had his left arm around Jen's waist, holding her upright as she limped over to where Matt stood. There was blood on her face and her right leg was covered with it, and from the way she moved he knew she must not have been so lucky. But she held her son in her arms. From this distance Charlie looked for all the world like he was sleeping, and dread settled heavy in Matt's gut;  _how could he have slept through something like that? Unless he isn't sleeping, oh, Christ, let him be sleeping._

"We need ambos over here!" Nick roared in a voice louder than Matt had ever imagined, and the men behind him jumped to attention at once. Another ambulance had arrived and a few more men came tearing across the grass, two of them carrying a stretcher between them.

"Christ, what happened in there?" Matt asked his friends; they were standing together, Nick holding Jen, Jen holding Charlie, Matt facing them with a heart full of questions.

Nick's face was grim, and he gave no answer.

"Nick, take him," Jen said sharply, suddenly, handing their son over to his father, and the moment Charlie was safe in Nick's arms she turned and retched, splashing the meager contents of her stomach across the grass.

* * *

The ambos let them all ride together, Nick and Jen and Charlie. Nick was sitting on a box of supplies pressed hard against the side of the ambulance, trying to stay out of the way but refusing to let go of Jen's hand. She looked pale and two of the ambos were fussing over her, and he hated the sight of blood on her face, but the people around them knew what they were doing, and they'd told him she was going to be all right, and he had no choice but to believe them.

And in his arms he held his son; the men who'd taken Charlie had sedated him somehow, likely thought things would go easier for them if he was asleep, but whatever they'd given him seemed to be wearing off because his little eyelashes were fluttering, and a few soft sounds of distress escaped his lips. But he was well, and safe, and in his father's arms, where he belonged. When they got to the hospital they'd patch up Nick's arm and check Charlie all over and do whatever the could to help Jen, and there was nothing for him to do but wait. So he leaned his head back against the boxes behind his head, and closed his eyes. He was exhausted, bone-weary in a way he had never been in his entire life, but he was holding Jen's hand, and Charlie was safe, and that was all that mattered.


	13. Chapter 13

As soon as the ambulance pulled into the bay at A&E Nick crawled out of it to stand on the pavement while a swarm of doctors and nurses descended upon them. It happened very quickly; he got to his feet and then they pulled Jen out of the back and then they were all walking through the doors, questions and answers flying through the air around them. The ambos were rattling off the list of their various injuries and so Nick stayed quiet, holding his son in his arms. They would take Charlie from him soon, and though Nick knew it was for the best that he let the doctors examine him he could not bear the thought of letting go of his child, not even for a moment. They had only just gotten him back after nearly twenty hours of an interminable hell, after nearly perishing with worry and storming that warehouse through a torrent of bullets, and after so much grief he was not prepared to let Charlie out of his sight. He was bone weary, hungry, sore, emotionally and physically drained almost beyond the point of reason, but his hold on Charlie was steady.

As they moved further into the hospital the ambos had nearly finished with their rapid-fire explanation of her condition when something occurred to Nick, and he tried, with some difficulty, to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, to find his voice through the haze of exhaustion that had overcome him.

"She threw up," he called to the doctors. "I don't know if that matters."

As far as he knew she hadn't hit her head and the bullet had struck her leg and not her stomach, but still, he felt it was important to make sure that the doctors knew it. Nausea could indicate all sorts of nasty internal trauma, and Nick wanted to do whatever he could to make sure Jen received the best possible care. Everything came to a halt, then; he was standing next to Jen, who was lying on a gurney and already hooked up to some sort of IV, and she reached for him quite suddenly, her hand falling limp against his arm.

"Nick," she said, her voice soft and low, as if she were only barely conscious.

"Is that right?" one of the doctors asked her. "You threw up? How many times?"

She looked so pale, small and weak against the white sheet beneath her, the blood stark and terrible on her clothes. As Nick gazed down upon her she closed her eyes, as if the effort of holding them open was too much to bear.

"Just once," he answered for her.

"Haven't felt like this since…" Jen started to say, the words coming out slow, as if they hurt her. "Since the last time I was pregnant."

Those words took him like a punch to the gut, and he stared down at her in confusion, a roaring loud as thunder in his ears.

"The last time?" Nick demanded, panic biting at him.  _The last time? Oh, God,_  he thought,  _what have we done?_ He wasn't sure whether he was more terrified or elated, in that moment, whether regret or disbelief or some other, more nebulous emotion would win out inside his heart. Was she trying to tell him that she thought she was pregnant now? It might explain a few things, he thought, her sudden change of heart on the subject of marriage, the way she'd thrown up, the way she'd complained, more than once of late, of not feeling quite right. When was the last time she'd told him it was  _that time of the month?_ He couldn't remember.

"Right, take her through here," one of the doctors said, and then they were rolling her away from him, her hand sliding off his arm and falling to hang limp by her side. They had not given him time to ask, had not even allowed him a moment to breathe; they simply took her from him, and then a few nurses with soft voices and worried eyes were prying Charlie out of his arms and someone was asking him questions but he could not hear over the churning turmoil of his own thoughts; was she pregnant, even now? Carrying their child? Had she walked into danger knowing the burden she carried, but doing it anyway, for Charlie's sake? Would the wound she'd suffered spell an end to that fragile hope? And if it did, or it didn't, would it matter if she'd lost too much blood already, if something truly catastrophic had happened in that warehouse, and she didn't come out of surgery alive? And where the bloody hell were they taking Charlie?

"My son," he started to ask one of the nurses, watching helplessly as they started to carry Charlie away from him. The boy was only half alert, but he reached out for his father with one little hand, calling softly,  _daddy?_

The nurses exchanged a long look, and then the one closest to him sighed.

"Come on, then," she said, taking hold of his uninjured arm. "We'll look at the two of you together."

* * *

"We don't have to do this now," Matt said. It was the sort of thing he knew he  _had_  to say, but he likewise knew that it was a lie, and that Nick wouldn't take him up on the offer to forestall the inevitable, anyway.

"No, it's all right," Nick answered. "Let's get it out of the way."

They were gathered together in a hospital room, Nick and Matt and Wolfie. Little Charlie was sleeping curled up in the bed, and Nick sat at his bedside, his elbows on his knees and his gaze firmly fixed on the little boy as if he feared at any moment someone might come marching in and try to take him away. Things were quiet, at least for now; the doctors said Jen would need surgery to repair her injured leg, but god only knew how long that would take, and there was nothing the rest of them could do but wait. By some stroke of luck they'd been delivered to the same hospital where Amy had been taken after the shooting, and the girl was sleeping in a room like this one just down the corridor, tired and sore but according to the doctors well on her way to making a full recovery. They'd discussed it amongst themselves, whether or not they should visit her, but Nick did not want to leave Charlie's side, not for a moment, not until he knew what had become of Jen, and Matt could hardly blame him.  _Let Amy sleep_ , he thought,  _and we'll get this part over with._

"Walk us through it, Detective Buchanan," Wolfie said. He was leaning back against the wall on the other side of the room with his notebook in his hands, and Matt scrambled to retrieve his own, kicking himself for not being better prepared. There were interviews like this one happening back at the station, people taking down Allie and Rhys and Duncan's version of events, and once she was feeling up to it they'd do the same to Jen. There was no point to it really, Matt thought, given the fact that there had been so many witnesses and they'd captured Hartono himself and a few of his men alive, but the box had to be ticked, and no matter how uncomfortable it made them all Nick would have to tell his story. He'd been injured and he'd fired his weapon; he'd likely have to go through the whole thing a half a dozen times, before the powers that be were satisfied.

_Poor bastard._

The shirt Nick had worn earlier in the day was torn and bloody, so Wolfie had given him the spare he kept in the boot of his car. It didn't fit him quite right, and combined with the state of his hair and his wrinkled trousers and the vacant look on his face it served to make him look ragged, exhausted, and utterly destroyed. Matt had thought he'd be relieved to have his son back, and no doubt he was, but Nick was still desperately worried about Jennifer, and whatever they'd seen in the warehouse must have troubled him, a very great deal.

There was silence for a moment, and then Nick took a very deep breath, and began to speak.

"We went through the door together," he said. "It was Jen first, then me. Allie was behind me. Duncan and Rhys were behind her, I don't know which of them came through first. The door opens out into a big empty space. It's not really a room, the whole ground floor of the building is open. We made a line, and moved towards the stairs. There was no one there. There are offices on the next floor but SIS had told us they thought everyone was upstairs, so we kept going. Jen and I went out first. Stairwell opens into a corridor. There's doors on both sides. We started moving down, and then the door at the end opened and they started shooting. Jen and I went left."

He was speaking in short, clipped sentences, his tone detached, almost mechanical. There was no fear or trembling, no weeping or stumbling over his words. However devastated he might have been Nick remained a professional through and through, and not for the first time Matt wondered how it was that he could be so steady, so in control of himself, despite the chaos of his circumstances. Was that one of the things Jen loved about him, Matt wondered, that he was so unflappable, that he always kept his head?  _Christ,_  there were so many things Matt didn't know, didn't understand about the pair of them, but he knew now was not the time for such questions.

"More people were coming up the stairs behind us. Jen wanted to try to get closer, so she and I moved out. The other officers provided cover and we managed to get almost to the door before Jen was shot. I pulled her into another room. She was screaming…"

Matt tried to picture it, Nick and Jen with guns in their hands, firing, bullets coming at them, knowing their child was so close but unable to reach him, the terror Nick must have felt when Jen was shot, to see the woman he loved in such pain, to hear her scream. A chill raced down his spine; he could not imagine anything more horrific than that.

"She was worried that if we kept shooting towards them we might hit Charlie. She was trying to get everyone to stand down. Dunny was further back. He kept everyone away." It made sense, and Matt knew Dunny had done the right thing in waiting, but it was a terrible decision to have to make; in the moment, it must have been all but impossible to choose the right path, to determine whether it would be best to ignore Jen or listen to her, to wait or to press forward. The team was practically family, and they would have done anything for one another. To hear Jen's screams, to know she was in pain but not be able to help...there was a small, selfish, pitiful part of his heart that was grateful he had not been in Dunny's shoes.

"SRG came in then. I don't know what they did. I was trying to keep Jen in the room with me. I didn't want her to get shot again. She could barely walk. But they took the room. They told us Charlie was all right, and one of them handed him to Jen. He'd been drugged with something. We had a call from Waverly, one of the gunmen they've arrested told them what it was. Doc says he's going to be fine."

Matt's gaze traveled across the room to where Charlie was sleeping, small and peaceful in that hospital bed that seemed much to big for such a little boy. In a way he supposed it was a mercy, that Charlie had been sedated, that he had not seen the hell his parents endured to free him, that his memories of the event would be hazy at best. He was only four years old;  _please, God_ , Matt prayed,  _please let him forget._

"We left them to it, and took Charlie out of the warehouse. The rest you know."

"Thank you, Nick," Wolfie said gravelly. "I know it can't be easy for you to talk about. I'm afraid I do have to ask some questions."

"I know," Nick answered.

"Why did Jennifer disobey the order to wait? You two were never supposed to be in that warehouse."

For the first time since the informal interview had begun Nick raised his head, staring incredulously at Wolfie, but before he could speak the door opened, and a doctor came shuffling in. Nick was on his feet at once, Wolfie's question completely forgotten.

"How is she?" he demanded.

"Detective Mapplethorpe is resting in her own room. As soon as she's settled one of the nurses will come for you, and you can go in and see her. The damage to her leg was serious but we've managed to repair it. She'll be out of commission for a few months but if she keeps up with her physio, we expect she'll make a full recovery."

That was welcome news; Matt's face burst into a wide smile, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared for Nick did not seem entirely relieved or at ease. No, something was still troubling him; he was still standing taut and tense, frowning.

"And is she…" he didn't finish his sentence, and Matt couldn't make heads or tails of that.  _Is she what?_ The doctor had said she was going to be fine, even said Nick could go and see her in a few minutes, what more could he want?

"I'm afraid I can only given detailed information to her next of kin. I shouldn't have even told you about the surgery," the doctor said, and his frown was just as deep as Nick's.

"Her only family in the world is in this hospital right now," Nick ground out from between clenched teeth. "Her sister's in a room down the hall and our son is lying right here. We're going to get married. Please, I have to know if...if she's...if we... _please."_

Matt had never seen Nick break, not really. In the last twenty-four hours he'd only seen the man show any sort of emotion twice, once when the Missing Persons detective had insulted Jen and then again when they'd come out of the warehouse and he'd yelled for an ambulance. But it seemed that Nick was finally beginning to come unraveled; he couldn't finish his sentence, could only stand there in anguish, too distressed to find the words, and just seeing him in such a state chilled Matt to the core.

But then, quite strangely, the doctor smiled. "I'm going to speak to her sister next, since technically she is the next of kin. But I suppose she'd just tell you everything I say, anyway."

Nick leaned forward, bracing himself with his hands on the bars of Charlie's hospital bed.

"It's touch and go at the moment, and I cannot give you any guarantees. But for right now...the baby's heartbeat is strong and steady."

It looked for all the world as if Nick had had the wind knocked out of him; he collapsed into the chair behind him, and sat for a moment stunned and silent.

 _The baby?_ Matt wondered, his mind spinning. It was too much to process; the day before he'd thought Nick and Jen meant no more to one another than they did to him, and now he'd found out that they had a son already, that they were engaged to be married, that they had another child on the way. The very fabric of reality seemed to twist and ripple around him;  _did they know?_  He asked himself. It was unbelievable, really, that they would have gone into that warehouse, put Jen in the line of fire, knowing that she was pregnant, but Nick had asked the question, and that seemed to indicate that he at least suspected. It certainly put a different spin on things; it would have been hard enough for Nick to see Jen taking off for that warehouse against orders knowing she was risking her own life, but to know that she was also pregnant at the time? They were a proper family, the pair of them, Nick and Jen and their child -  _children -_  and they had kept all of it a secret, had trusted no one with the truth of themselves, not even  _Matt,_ who had thought before now that Jen was one of his best mates in the whole world. In that moment Matt felt no steadier on his feet than Nick had been.

"Thank you," Nick said, softly, quietly. And then he once more rested his elbows on his knees, only this time he buried his head in his hands.

The doctor left them, and as the door closed behind him Wolfie took a step towards Nick, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"It goes without saying that this news won't leave this room," Wolfie told Nick, though he was looking right at Matt, and Matt could almost hear him say  _you keep your mouth shut, Ryan._ He nodded, dumbly; he wasn't about to share this with anyone, not when he could hardly believe it himself. Jen was  _pregnant,_ and everything he thought he knew about her had been completely blown apart.

"But I do want to say congratulations, Nick. Sergeant Ryan and I will be in the waiting room, should you need us. We'll give you and Charlie some time alone."

Nick didn't answer, simply remained right where he was as if he could not find the strength to move. That was the last thing Matt saw, before he walked out the door in Wolfie's wake, Nick sitting with his head in his hands, and Charlie sleeping peacefully.


	14. Chapter 14

Jen came awake slowly. There was no sense of being dragged up from a dream, no fleeting memories of the horror that had come before, only a long, slow, surge towards consciousness, eyelashes fluttering, lips parting, the dim, distant awareness of pain, pain that existed and yet could not be entirely felt, as if some sort of wall had been built between her mind and her body and the pain could not clamber over it.

Blinking heavily she let the light overhead fill her senses, almost blinding after so long -  _how long? -_  in the dark. Stiff sheets, stiff gown, cold air, everything white and metal and somehow both vital and functional; she was in the hospital, she knew, was lying in the bed they'd put her in after her arrival. As some of the fog cleared from her mind she turned her head, trying to get a better sense of what was happening around her, and found Nick sitting in a chair by her bed, his elbows on his knees and his head hung low between his shoulders. Her arms felt heavy and stiff and there was an IV in the back of her hand or else she would have reached for him, would have run her fingers through his dark hair in the way she knew he liked, would have offered him some comfort. In the absence of her touch she was left with only her voice and so she spoke to him, softly, gently.

"Nick?"

He raised his head sharply, his dark eyes running over her face, his hands reaching for hers at once. He took her hand gently, mindful of the IV, did not squeeze or pull but only held her, no doubt as desperate for that contact as she was herself.

"Charlie?" she asked him then. She had to know; she could not recall much of what had happened after they'd left the warehouse but she knew their son had been heavy and limp in her arms when she'd handed him off to Nick.

"He's all right, Jen, he's perfect. He's sleeping."

Though she was relieved - more than relieved, more overwhelmed with relief than any word could convey - she still frowned; she wanted, very much, to see her son, and she did not relish the thought of him sleeping all alone in a cold hospital bed, the thought of him waking without his parents there to reassure him.

"Duncan's with him, he promised he'd come get me when he wakes."

Jen smiled then, satisfied; of course he had thought of everything, this man she loved with her whole heart, of course he would not have left their boy all alone after everything he'd been through. Charlie loved his Uncle Dunny, and Duncan loved the boy fiercely, and she knew her friend would watch over her child just as well as she could have done herself.

"How are you feeling?" Nick asked her then, serious and exhausted.

"Like I've been hit by a bus," she answered truthfully. "Everything feels heavy. I can't even pick up my arms." Her right hand flopped a bit uselessly by her side;  _I can move it if I try, though, that's a good thing._ Nick smiled and bowed his head, pressed a kiss against the back of her hand.

"Doc says you came through surgery all right. You'll be off your feet for a while but he thinks you'll make a full recovery."

That was good news indeed; there had been no time in the moment, desperate as she was to reach Charlie, to save him, to worry about what would become of her after a bullet pierced her thigh, but she'd had time to wonder in the ambulance, once Charlie was safe, whether this would spell the end of her career.

"I guess I'll be riding a desk for a while," she mused. It wasn't the end of the world, she told herself; maybe she could get more administrative experience, join Waverly's staff. That might help, in the long run, if she wanted to move higher up the chain, and it would give her more time to study for the Sergeant's exam-

"You'll be in bed for a while," Nick corrected her gently. "This is serious, Jen. You won't be cleared to go back to work, even on light duty, for months. And besides…"

That was quite strange, Jen thought; ordinarily, Nick had no problem giving voice to his thoughts, at least not when he was talking to her. His expression was drawn, pained almost, and his grip on her hand tightened. Something was wrong, she realized. There was something he hadn't told her yet, and the very thought that there might be something  _else,_  that they had not endured enough already, was deeply distressing.

"What is it?" she asked him. She was not begging, was not insistent or desperate; she only asked him, knowing he would answer.

"Jen…" he started to speak, stopped, gave a little sigh and then straightened his shoulders, and all the while he held her hand. "Jen, you're pregnant."

There was a question in his gaze, and she meant to answer it, but she could not find her voice for in that moment she was swept beneath a tide of emotion so strong and so fierce she could hardly identify it before it drowned her. Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes and her stomach heaved, a thousand questions blooming into life at once.

 _Oh no,_  she thought, her free hand lifting at once to settle against her still-flat stomach.  _Oh, no._ It had occurred to her to wonder once or twice in the proceeding weeks if that might have been the case, but she'd been so bloody busy, and she'd only felt ill a time or two, and her cycle had been irregular since Charlie's birth and all together she'd simply never felt compelled enough to take a test. And then Charlie had been taken from her, and she'd forgotten all about it, had never once stopped to consider as she raced to save him if she were risking more than her own life. Would she still have gone into that warehouse, guns blazing, if she'd known for a fact she was carrying another child?

 _Yes,_ came the answer from the depths of her very heart, and the tears began to flow down her cheeks in earnest. She was terrified to think she had taken such a risk, that the trauma she'd suffered and maybe even the medications racing through her system at that very moment might spell an end to that fragile hope, but if she were given the chance to do it all again she knew she wouldn't have changed a thing, would have still thrown herself wholeheartedly into the effort to save her son.  _What kind of a mother does that make me?_ She wondered; she genuinely could not decide if it was awful or practical or something else entirely.

"You didn't know," Nick said. It wasn't a question; he must have seen it in her face, her confusion, her doubt. She gave a little shake of her head, though she regretted it almost immediately for her head had begun to pound and lights seemed to flash behind her eyelids each time she blinked.

Nick rose to his feet, then, still holding her hand, and leaned over her bed to kiss her forehead gently.

"It's going to be all right, Jen," he told her.

"But what if-"

"We'll deal with the what ifs as they come," he answered. He was still leaning over her and smiling so gently, this beautiful man she loved with her whole heart. "Forget about the rest of it. Forget about everything that's happened today. Just tell me...what do you think about us having a baby? Another baby?"

For a long moment she closed her eyes, and tried to find a genuine answer to his question. Tried to set aside her grief and her guilt, and think only of the future. A future months from now, when her leg was healed, when Amy was better - oh,  _God,_  she had to ask him about Amy - when Charlie had forgotten all about everything he'd been through. What would she feel then, if one day she had another child to hold, to love, another little one with Nick's serious face and his dark hair, a brother or a sister for Charlie to play with, to grow up with, someone for him to love as much as she loved Amy?

"I think it's wonderful," she whispered. As she breathed those words she opened her eyes to study Nick's reaction, and found that he was smiling, broadly and without reservation.

"Me, too," he said, and kissed her head again.

They were going to have a  _baby,_ another baby; Jen could hardly believe it, and yet as the news sank in she found she wanted that, with everything she had. It had been so hard, with Charlie, to go through all those milestones alone, to watch her belly grow, feel him move, without Nick there beside her. Nick had not been there to hear their child's first wailing cry, to change nappies or hold him when he was so small, to watch him take his first steps, speak his first words. There was no doubt in her mind that Nick loved Charlie with his whole heart, but the thought of being able to share all those things he'd missed, to watch him in those early days of fatherhood as she had once so longed to do, filled her heart with hope, with joy, with love. There was room enough in her life, she thought, for another little one, and more than enough love to go around, and she could think of nothing better.

"I have something for you," Nick said then, reaching into his pocket. "I've been keeping it in my desk at work. I would have given it to you yesterday morning, only I didn't have it with me then."

He withdrew a small black jewelry box, and Jen's breath caught in her throat, the tears returning at once.  _Of course,_ she thought; he'd asked her, again, to marry him, but this time she'd said yes. It was so very Nick, to have kept hold of the ring for so long, despite the fact that he had asked her more than once only to hear  _not now, not yet._ He had known all along that one day she would agree, and he had purchased that ring, and kept it close, waiting for the right moment. How long had it been in his pocket? Had he picked it up that morning when they went in to work, carried it with him through all the long hours of their ordeal?

Carefully he retrieved the little ring from the box, and she held out her trembling left hand to him.

"There is nothing in this world that matters more to me than our family, and I can't wait for you to be my wife," Nick said as he slid the ring on her finger. Through the sheen of her tears Jen could see it was a white gold band, inset with a series of little diamonds. He knew her so well, this love hers, knew that a big, flashy ring was not to her taste, knew that something like this would be better suited to the activity of her job. He had bought this ring just for her, and it was perfect.

Reverently he pressed his lips against her hand, and she smiled through her tears.

"Come here," she told him, and he came, grinning, to capture her lips instead.

* * *

Jen was three days in hospital. They let him take Charlie home that first night, and as much as he hated to leave Jen behind he knew that it was Charlie who needed him most. Jen could sleep in hospital, under the care of doctors and nurses, but Charlie needed to be at home, surrounded by familiar things, with someone he loved to look after him. They didn't do much, during that time; Charlie slept in Jen's bed beside him at night, and they woke each morning for cereal and cartoons before making the trek to the hospital to visit Amy and Jen. They wandered the corridor of the trauma ward between the two rooms, Charlie clinging tight to his father's hand, and the nurses doted on the little boy and slowly what had once been so strange became somehow familiar. He learned the names of the people who were managing Jen's care and Charlie became quite adept at maneuvering his way into his mother's bed. Jen grew stronger as the time passed, and did not utter one single complaint. The doctor's monitored the baby's heartbeat and assured them both that everything appeared to be right on track, and that was all for the good, as well.

On that third day he and Charlie went to pick Jen up from hospital, stopping to say hello to Auntie Amy on the way. Amy would linger there a few days more, but she would be home before the week was out, and then their little family would be complete. The doctors had insisted that Jen be taken to the car in a wheelchair, and so she had gathered Charlie into her lap and held him close as she was pushed along the corridors, and the sight of them together had reassured Nick more than anything else that everything was going to be all right.

He drove her home, walked Charlie inside while Jen followed on crutches. They ate a little supper and then fell into bed together, all three of them, almost before the sun had set. It had been a trying few days, and now that they were finally at home, together, the exhaustion seemed to catch up with them. Charlie was asleep at once, sandwiched between his parents, but Nick rolled onto his side and reached across his sleeping son, taking hold of Jen's hand.

"It's good to be home," she whispered as she laced their fingers together, brought their hands to rest together low on her belly. She wasn't showing yet, but she would be soon, and Nick could hardly wait. It almost shocked him, how badly he wanted this, how he longed to walk alongside Jen through the whole process. Children had never been something he dreamed about, planned for, and in fact before Jen had walked back into his life he'd all but decided they were out of the question. Now, though, everything had changed; love had found him, and family, too, and he was no longer the same man he had been before. He wanted to watch Jen's belly grow, wanted to hold their screaming baby in his arms, wanted, very much, to know if they were going to have another little boy just like Charlie or a beautiful girl who looked just like her mother. He wanted his family safe, and together, always, all four of them - five of them, really, because they would never be complete without Amy.

"I've missed you," Nick said softly. He'd seen her every day, but he reckoned she knew what he meant, how he had missed falling asleep beside her, having her in their home.

"Well, you'll never be rid of me now," she teased him. Nick raised himself up on his elbows and leaned over Charlie so he could kiss her, properly, feeling her smile against his lips.

Strange, he thought, how much his life had changed over the last year or so. He thought he'd never see her again, and now she was to be his wife, was already the mother of his children, had, quite easily, become the very center of his whole world. Their past had come for them with hatred and violence but Muhammad Hartono would at last be put away for his crimes, and the ghosts of their past could be laid to rest. The future spread out before them, full of hope, full of potential, and in that moment Nick Buchanan was a happy man.


	15. Chapter 15

_Several months later…_

Nick Buchanan had always been an early riser. Living with Jen full time hadn't changed that; as her belly grew she slept fitfully, and did not complain when he slipped from their bed to go for his customary morning jog.

Today was no different; the sun had not yet risen when he stepped out the front door to greet the day. Carefully he locked the door behind him - for all the people he loved most in the world were sleeping in that house - dropped the key into his pocket, and started out. He walked at first, a few paces, just to stretch his muscles, and then he picked up the pace gradually until he reached a steady, constant speed. Some people liked to listen to music as they ran, but Nick wasn't one of them; he liked the quiet. He liked listening to the birds as they called their greetings to the slowly rising sun, liked to time his breathing to the rhythmic slap of his shoes on the pavement, liked to have this time when his thoughts were the loudest sound in range. His life was full to bursting with noise, now, and much as he loved it he still craved a bit of silence.

It was a time of reflection, and he relished it. Though he carried his mobile with him his thoughts did not linger on work, the mystery of the hour or the politicking of the brass or the endless list of reports he needed to complete; in the stillness of the dawn he thought only of his family, and of their future.

Jen was big as a house, now. She was due any day, and Nick couldn't wait. Watching her belly grow, feeling the tremulous movements of their child beneath her skin, going with her to doctor's appointments and hearing the baby's heartbeat, seeing their baby's face on the ultrasound, all of it had brought him such joy, to know that between them they had created another life, that soon they would have another child to hold. It was a joy tinged with sorrow, to know he had not been there for her the first time, to think of all the things he'd missed, but he was with her now, and that was the most important thing.

She'd recovered from her surgery well, and though her leg pained her in bad weather she had not suffered any loss of movement - not from the bullet, anyway. The size of her growing belly and her swollen ankles left her waddling, and while Nick would never dare say such a thing aloud, he found the sight of her practically adorable. Amy, too, was doing well; she'd pushed her plans for travelling back a year while she recovered, but she seemed happy, seemed to have bounced back from the trauma of having been attacked in her own home. They'd all filed it away, almost, put the memories aside as if they dared not look at them, silently agreed amongst themselves to treat the event for what it was, a strange, terrible nightmare that would not come for them again. Charlie had been unconscious for most of the ordeal, and seemed not recall much of it at all, for which Nick was very thankful.

The wedding had been put off, as well; Jen had been adamant that she wanted to stand unaided by cane or crutches for her wedding, and doubly adamant that she not be, in her own words,  _fat as a whale_ in all the photographs. They'd picked a day six months after the baby's due date, and Nick looked forward to it with relish. The venue and the caterers and the florist had all been booked, and Jen had bought a dress. He knew nothing about it at all except that she'd made Amy model it for her, and arranged to have it tailored after the baby was born. Every time the subject of her dress was raised Jen's eyes went soft and misty, and Nick rather thought that was the part of the wedding he was looking forward to most of all, seeing Jen in the dress that clearly meant so much to her. It had been a long hard road that led them to this point, enabled them at last to fall together and make their family whole, and he could think of no better way to celebrate their joy than with a party, all their friends and family in attendance.

His feet carried him along a familiar path, and he was out of the house for the better part of an hour. At last, however, he made his way back home, kicked his trainers off on the porch and used the end of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his brow before stepping inside.

It had not been a difficult decision, in the end, to move Jen and Charlie and Amy into his house. His house was much bigger than Jen's little bungalow, and it did not have the memories; the cleaning crew they'd hired had done a masterful job and there had been no evidence of Amy's blood left on the tile in the kitchen, but while the stain was no longer visible they saw it, all three of them, each time they entered that room. It was better for all of them to start fresh, and so they had. He'd painted the upstairs bedrooms and finally caved, hired a contractor to lay down the flooring and speed the process along. There was a suite downstairs that was perfect for Amy; she had her own en suite bathroom, now, and could watch TV or raid the fridge in the middle of the night - or, though Nick did not want to even think about such a thing, have a  _friend_ over - without worrying about disturbing the rest of their family. There were three bedrooms upstairs, a master suite for Nick and Jen, and a room for Charlie and one for when the baby was a bit older, and a bathroom for them to share. He had a little back garden, and the appliances in the kitchen were all brand new, and it had become their home, and they were happy in it.

As he stepped into the sitting room he could hear the soft sounds of someone rummaging around in the kitchen, and so he ducked his head through the door, smiling when he caught sight of Amy, her hair a mess and Jen's favorite floral robe wrapped around her, in the very act of making coffee.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning," she answered around a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Sleep all right?"

Before she could answer he heard the soft sound of a footfall behind him, and he turned his head, expecting to see Jen.

It was not Jen, though; it was someone he had not expected, and they stood frozen for a moment, staring at one another, both of them so utterly shocked to see the other that no words could come to them.

Nick found his voice first; he cleared his throat and said, trying very hard not to grin, "morning."

"Morning," Allie answered, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, worrying the strap of her holdall between her fingers and looking for all the world as if she wanted the ground to swallow her up. She was an early riser, too, he knew, was even now dressed for the gym; it was not quite 6:00 a.m., and likely she'd thought she could escape before anyone else saw her. To all their horror, her timing could not have been worse.

"Jen know you're here?"

It took everything Nick had not to laugh as her expression grew mortified in response to his question. It really was quite awkward; he'd begun to suspect there was something brewing between Amy and Allie, but he was not particularly well informed on their personal proclivities and he desperately did not want to raise the subject on his own. They'd met while Amy was still in hospital and Allie had been round a few times for beers and burgers, and Amy had been going out to spend time with a mysterious  _friend_  whose name she did not speak, and now it seemed he had all the evidence he needed.

"No," Amy said, walking up to stand between them, almost as if she were trying to protect Allie from him. She needn't have worried; he rather thought she might be good for Allie, might with her gentle, free-wheeling spirit soften some of Allie's rough edges, and he cared for them both as much as his own sisters, and wanted nothing more than for them to be happy. "And don't tell her, you know what she's like."

"I won't tell her now," Nick assured her, "but you should. She'll be happy for you if you tell her, but if she finds out you've been keeping it a secret-"

"Yeah, all right," Amy agreed somewhat reluctantly. There was an awful moment of silence then, as they all looked at one another, as Nick realized Amy was sporting a rather impressive hickey on the side of her neck, but Amy found her way through it in the end.

"Come on," she said to Allie, "I'll walk you to the door."

"Right," Allie agreed faintly. "I'll see you later, Nick."

"Yeah, see ya, Allie. Hey," he added on impulse, and the girls stopped in their tracks, turning back to stare at him warily, "why don't you come round tomorrow? We'll do Sunday lunch, all of us together. It'll be nice."

Allie's mouth fell open, but before she could come up with some snarky retort Amy took her hand, and gave it a little squeeze.

"Yeah, it'll be nice," she said, looking up at Allie with soft, hopeful eyes. Nick knew that look well, for Jen wore it herself often enough, and he realized in that moment that Allie was no more immune to it than he was himself.

"Yeah, all right," Allie said, as if she had any other choice.

The girls left him then, and Nick went to make his way up the stairs; he paused halfway down the hall to listen by Charlie's door, but there was only silence from the other side and he smiled, grateful that he might be able to steal a few minutes with Jen before their son woke. He carried on, then, down the corridor, and into the room he shared with Jen. She was still lying beneath the duvet and so he stripped down to his trunks at once and went to join her, trying to fight back the grin his interaction with the girls had left on his face. He was happy for them, really; in a way they made sense together, and he wouldn't mind seeing Allie loosen up a little bit. If she really did come round for lunch the next day it would be the perfect time to tell Jen the truth, and he wouldn't have to worry about keeping this secret from her for long. They had not ever kept secrets from one another, Nick and Jen, and he didn't want to start now.

Jen was lying on her side, and so he pressed himself along her back, cradled her belly with one hand and dropped a gentle kiss against her cheek. Though he'd thought she was sleeping he realized his mistake at once, for she wrinkled her nose at his touch.

"You stink," she told him playfully.

He was grinning fit to burst. "You like that about me," he told her, and when she turned her head he captured her lips in a gentle kiss. It was a Saturday morning, the sun was rising, Amy had already made coffee, Jen was here with him, Charlie would be awake soon;  _this_ was the reason he loved the morning best. He liked having his family all in one place, together, with nowhere to go, nothing to worry about, nothing to do but be together. And this was, he thought, one of the best mornings he could recall.

"We really have to come up with a name for her, you know," he said, running his hand along the curve of Jen's belly.

"I want to wait until I see her," Jen answered him. "Nothing seems right. I think I'll know, once I see her face."

"Hannah?" he suggested, letting his lips press against the corner of her mouth. She fell back against him, and he made room for her to lie on her back, holding himself up on his elbow so he could smile down at her as she shook her head.

"Elizabeth?" he asked, kissing the corner of her eye this time.

That suggestion earned him another shake of her head.

"Emma?" He kissed the end of her nose.

"Nick," she sighed beneath him.

"That's a terrible name for a girl."

Jen laughed aloud. "Come here," she said then, and he did, held himself over her and pressed his lips hard against hers, kissed her soundly while her fingers wound through his hair and his free hand traveled from her belly up to cup one of her swollen breasts. She whimpered against his lips and he grinned, hopeful, but before things could progress much further between them the bedroom door opened.

Nick lifted his head at once and smiled as Charlie came shuffling in, dressed in only his pants and dragging his blanket behind him. When his son reached the side of the bed Nick picked him up easily, and plunked him down between them.

"Good morning, bug," Jen said, ruffling his messy hair.

"Morning," he answered sleepily. "Pancakes?"

"Daddy needs a shower, bug, but then I'll make pancakes," Nick promised.

"Daddy makes the best pancakes," Jen said, grinning.

 _Christ,_ but he had not known it was possible to be this happy. Jen was beautiful, Charlie was safe, Amy had found a bit of joy for herself, and they were all together, in one place, safe and well and whole. There was nothing else he needed, nothing else that mattered in the world. There was only  _them,_ his family, and this little one who would join them soon enough.

But Nick did need that shower, and so he hauled himself out of bed. Charlie had snuggled up close to Jen and she had wrapped her arms around him as best she could, but as he looked at them a strange expression crossed her face, and she gave a startled gasp.

"Nick?" she said.

"What is it?"

He was by her side in an instant, worry suddenly flooding him; the morning had been going so well, but he did not like the way she was frowning, did not like the way her hand had clenched in the bedsheets.

"Don't be worried," she said quickly, but of course that just made him worry all the more.

"Jen-"

"I started having contractions last night, and-"

"You what?!"

"Just little ones. It can go on for hours, Nick, there was no point in getting worked about it last night. I even got some sleep. But now-"

"I'm all wet!" Charlie cried suddenly, scrambling away from the bed as if it were on fire.

"But now my water's broken and that last contraction hurt worse than the others," Jen finished firmly.

Nick's smile was back, though his heart was pounding, though he could hardly process what she was trying to tell him. His mind was racing; she'd been having contractions all night, and while he wanted to be cross with her for not telling him sooner he understood that she knew better than he what to expect, what was coming next, what was needed. And she had spared him a sleepless, anxious night, given him the gift of this beautiful morning, this most unexpected surprise. The time had come, and Nick could not wait to hold their little girl in his arms, to see his daughter at last, to find out what name Jen would pick for her. There was so much to  _do_ he hardly knew where to begin, but he supposed they would start here, now, together.

"You mean-"

She nodded.

"Time to go, I think."

Nick had been right, after all; it was quite the best morning of his entire life, and it was only going to get better.


End file.
